[morning8glory]

I have a friend who goes in and out of deep depression.
Like bilpolar.
His wife beleives he has Bilpolar but he says a doctor told him he did not.
He stays in bed for weeks on end only getting up to use the bathroom and then when he feels strong enought to get out of bed he is high as pie.
He does not sleep much during those weeks awake most of night working on some thing.
It is difficult some times to have conversation with him with out hurting his feelings when he is high as pie.
I do not call his home when I think he is home alone I call when his wife is home to talk to her.
I enjoy much of her conversations.
He has been good for a month out of bed all day and most of night now.
He is always embarking on a new vitamin or herb or diet etc.
He reads about these things when he is starting to feel less depressed and he takes each new thing on like its the most important thing in the world and as if it is information that every one has to know and does not know. His new thing is his new knowledge of calcium. He is reading all about calcium and taking calcuim.
He beleives it has cured him this month of depression and his strenght is strong.
I have read all the same information and do take 1700 calcium every day three different sources. But that is my business and it bores me to talk of it. I have tried almost every new herb and vitamin that comes along with a sales pitch. I have a hand full to take twice a day and its just part of my routine. I do not talk of my vitamin routine any more than I do of the brand of tooth paste I use or shampoo or soap etc.
According to my friend I am not taking the right kind of calcium etc.
So I try to avoid conversation when he is in this type of mood.
Today I got home and had a documentary on my answering machine of his health process taking his calcuim. And again all the new knowledge he has recently learned about calcuim.
He also beleives he has CFS and he knows I have it and I get a strong feeling he just things I have to do as he does or I am not doing it right so I am sick and will stay sick so he thinks he is helping me. If he wants to buy my vitamins for me I will take his brand and type.
I really do hope he keeps feeling better all the time. I hope for him it was just a calcium problem.
He has his wife taking them and she claims she feels better also.
If he felt great for a year I would say hey were are you buying your calcuim.
But it seems to be part of his mental disorder.
His wife has a similiar kind of thinking.
A mutal friend of ours has uncureable breast and bone cancer, She is seeing the best of doctors and doing every thing she can to beat it but it is beating her. She has been flying even to Mexico for herbal type treatments and they were not helping. The doctors were working with her and around the herbal treatments and now the doctors changed her medicine routine and told her she must now go off the herbal treatments.
I think she was releived to go off of them since it was hard to eat the diet that was expected of her while on the herbal treatments and the treatments and diet took time to prepare and had to to be taken at set times every day and the trips were long and expensive to Mexico.
My freind who only wants to about calcium this month his wife told me that our friend gave up her last chance for living when she went off the Mexico treatments.
I love these people they are good kind people but the aditude they have at times is hard to deal with.
How do I say to my friend what vitamins I take is my personal business.
I would like to say when you stay undepressed for a year then talk to me about your brand and type of vitamins.
Morning8glory

[CamW]

MGlory - The theories of calcium in depression and mania is not based on the calcium tablets that can be bought, but has to do with the modulation of intracellular calcium ions (Ca++) concentrations inside and outside a nerve cell. Taking calium tablets will not change these parameters as they are mainly regulated (in nerve cells) by a biochemical system called the phosphoinositol (PPI) cycle.

A PPI cycle that is working properly regulates the concentration calcium ion within the nerve cell and this helps to regulate (modulate) the cellular membrane, so that nerve cell does not fire when it is not supposed to (ie does not fire without appropriate electrical stimulation from other nerve cells). Thus, fixing the the calcium ion concentrations via modulation of the PPI stabilizes nerve cells.

The PPI cycle controls Ca++ conctrations in 2 major way. It causes the release of Ca++ stores from an intracellular structure called the endoplasmic reticulum (via a byproduct of the PPI cycle called DAG). Also, the PPI cycle helps to control Ca++ entry into the nerve cell from outside the cell.

This increase of intraneuronal Ca++ helps to stabilize the neuronal cellular membrane, helping to prevent the neuron (nerve cell) from firing when it shouldn't.

Most research done in this field points to the above mechanisms from stopping mania, but I suppose that depression may also be decreased via this mechanism, but probably in a more indirect fashion.

Lithium is thought to interfere with an overactive PPI cycle, reducing the influx of Ca++ into the cell, and slowing Ca++ release from the endoplasmic reticulum.

I have not seen any peer reviewed scientific research stating that taking calcium supplements (which does not necessarily equate to increased Ca++ concentrations at the neuronal membrane. In fact, taking large quantities of calcium supplements has occasionally resulted in intestinal blockages, as the body can only absorb so much calcium.

Unfortunately, time and time again, herbal and vitamin therapies have been promoted for the "cure" of various mental disorders. Extensive scientific research and evidence-based clinical observation has not shown to be effective in treating mental disorders. Of course, that is in cases where a person is not low in certain vitamins. For example, the lack of certain B-vitamins, especially in sailors of old, caused a condition called pellagra, which did have psychiatric manifestations; but the incidence of pellagra is very, very uncommon in the industrialized world.

It seems that every 10 to 15 years megavitamin cures are touted by people who sell vitamins, but scientific research and a basic understanding of physiology and pharmacology has not shown that megavitamin therapy has ever directly "cured" any mental illness (again, unless the body was deficient in certain vitamins, which, as I said, is seldom seen today).

As for herbs, one must consider them drugs. Just because they are natural, does not mean that they are totally safe (eg. opium and strichnine are natural, as is the cyanide contain in peach pits). Any product (animal, vegetable, or mineral) taken to attempt to alleiate and illness "must" be considered a drug. The substance that is taken is expected to elicit a therapeutic effect, thus it is a drug therapy. Even water can be considered a drug, when it is taken to try to flush out the bacteria and viruses of a cold.

The adage "if the claims of a treatment sound too good to be true, it almost always is too good to be true" applies especially to scientifically untested and unproven remedies.

I hope that this is of some help to you. - Cam


<font color=blue>"Humility: timidity of the slave or hypocracy of the schemer?</font color=blue>