title: The major psychoses and neuroses as omega-3 essential fatty acid deficiency syndrome: substrate pellagra.
abstract: Pellagra was once a major cause of three behaviorally different mental disorders-schizophreniform, manic-depressive-like, and phobic neurotic - plus drying dermatoses, autonomic neuropathies, tinnitus, and fatigue. In this preliminary study all three of the corresponding present-day mental diseases are found to exhibit, statistically, the same pellagraform physical disorders but to ameliorate not so much with vitamins as with supplements of a newly discovered trace omega-3 essential fatty acid (w3-EFA), which provides the substrate upon which niacin and other B vitamin holoenzymes act uniquely to form the prostaglandin 3 series tissue hormones regulating neurocircuits en block. Since present-day refining and food selection patterns, as well as pure corn diets, deplete both the B vitamins and W3-EFA, the existence of therapeutically cross-reacting homologous catalyst and substrate deficiency forms of pellagra are postulated, the first contributing to the B vitamin deficiency epidemics of 50-100 years ago, the second to the more recent endemic "Diseases of Western Civilization" which express in certain genetic subgroups as the major mental illnesses of today.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000188:drug therapy; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy; D005228:Fatty Acids, Essential / Q000172:deficiency*; D005231:Fatty Acids, Unsaturated / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008043:Linseed Oil / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy*; D010383:Pellagra / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy
chemical_list: D005228:Fatty Acids, Essential; D005231:Fatty Acids, Unsaturated; D008043:Linseed Oil