Abram Hoffer

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Abram Hoffer
orthomolecular therapy as a treatment for schizophrenia
Scientific career
FieldsSchizophrenia, Nutrition, Alcoholism
InstitutionsSaskatchewan Department of Public Health
University of Saskatchewan

Abram Hoffer (November 11, 1917 – May 27, 2009) was a Canadian

niacin can be used to treat high cholesterol and other dyslipidemias.[5] Hoffer's ideas about megavitamin therapy to treat mental illness are not accepted by the medical community.[6]

Biography

Hoffer was born in the small Jewish settlement of Sonnenfeld[7] in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1917, the last of four children and the son of Israel Hoffer.[8] Originally interested in agriculture, Hoffer earned both a bachelor's[8] and a master's degree in agricultural chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He then took up a scholarship for a year of post-graduate work with the University of Minnesota, followed by work developing assays for niacin levels at a wheat products laboratory in Winnipeg. Hoffer earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1944, part of which involved the study of vitamins (particularly B vitamins and their effect on the body)[8] and with an interest in nutrition went on to study medicine at the University of Manitoba in 1945. After two years of clinical work at the University of Toronto, Hoffer earned his MD in 1949. Though originally intending to be a general practitioner, during his studies Hoffer developed an interest in psychiatry.[8][9] He married Rose Miller in 1942, and his son Bill Hoffer was born in 1944 followed by two more children, John and Miriam, in 1947 and 1949.

Hoffer was hired by the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health in 1950 to establish a provincial research program in psychiatry,[8] and joined the Regina Psychiatric Services Branch, Department of Public Health in 1951.[9] He remained the Director of Psychiatric Research until entering private practice in 1967.[10] Critical of psychiatry for its emphasis on psychosomatic psychoanalysis and for what he considered a lack of adequate definition and measurement, Hoffer felt that biochemistry and human physiology may be used instead. He hypothesised that people with schizophrenia may lack the ability to remove the hallucinogenic catecholamine metabolite adrenochrome from their brains. Hoffer thought niacin could be used as a methyl acceptor to prevent the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline and that Vitamin C could be used to prevent the oxidation of Adrenaline to Adrenochrome.[11] Hoffer called his theory the "adrenochrome hypothesis".

In 1967, Hoffer resigned some of his academic and administrative positions, entered into private psychiatric practice in

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and created the Journal of Schizophrenia (renamed the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 1986). Hoffer used the journal to publish articles on what he called "nutritional psychiatry", later orthomolecular psychiatry, claiming his ideas were consistently rejected by mainstream journals because they were unacceptable to the medical establishment.[12] In 1976, Hoffer relocated to Victoria, British Columbia and continued with his private psychiatric practice until his retirement in 2005. In 1994, Hoffer founded the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, holding its inaugural in Vancouver in April of the same year.[13] Hoffer continued to provide nutritional consultations and served as editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.[10] He was also President of the Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre in Victoria, BC.[14]

Hoffer died at the age of 91 on May 27, 2009, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.[15] His remains were buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Victoria.

Research

Working in Saskatchewan with

LSD. Canadian scientists reported a fifty percent success rate in one study, although Hoffer speculated that it was more likely the psychedelic experience of LSD, rather than simulated delirium tremens, that convinced the alcoholics to stop drinking.[19]

While working at the

endogenous neurotoxin that could cause schizophrenia.[21] At the same time, another Canadian working in Saskatoon, pathologist Rudolf Altschul, was exploring the use of high doses of niacin to lower cholesterol in rabbits and patients with degenerative vascular disease. The three combined their work, and in 1955 produced a paper entitled "Influence of nicotinic acid on serum cholesterol in man." The paper summarized their research showing high-dose niacin significantly lowered cholesterol in both high cholesterol patients as well as low cholesterol control subjects.[5] The results were replicated by researchers at the Mayo Clinic and in Germany the following year. High-dose niacin has since become a treatment option for individuals with high blood cholesterol and related blood lipid abnormalities
.

At such high doses niacin acts like a drug rather than a vitamin and may have side effects of intense flushing of the face and torso and, rarely, liver toxicity.[20] Hoffer continued to promote niacin as a treatment for schizophrenia, though this approach was not accepted by mainstream medicine. Subsequent research suggested that Hoffer's adrenochrome theory had merit as people with schizophrenia have defects in the genes that produce glutathione S-transferase, which eliminates the byproducts of catecholamines from the brain.[21] Though Hoffer and Osmond reported nicotinic acid could help with the treatment of schizophrenia, others reported that they could not replicate these results.[citation needed] Despite the apparent face validity of Hoffer's "transmethylation hypothesis" (in which it was thought that the production of catecholamines could sometimes go awry and produce a hallucinogenic neurotoxin), it was ultimately rejected for two reasons: the alleged neurotoxins were never identified and the cause of schizophrenia became attributed to dysfunctions in neurotransmitters.[22]

Controversy

Hoffer's claims regarding schizophrenia and his theories of holistic orthomolecular medicine have been criticized by the mainstream of psychiatry.[6] In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association reported methodological flaws in Hoffer's work on niacin as a schizophrenia treatment and referred to follow-up studies that did not confirm any benefits of the treatment,[23] prompting at least two responses.[24][25]

Multiple additional studies in the United States,[26] Canada,[27] and Australia[28] similarly failed to find benefits of megavitamin therapy to treat schizophrenia. The term "orthomolecular" was labeled a misnomer as early as 1973.[23] Psychiatrist and critic of psychiatry Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), believed Hoffer's view of schizophrenia as a physical disease treatable with vitamins and self-help therapy to be "pure quackery".[29]

Publications

Further reading

Footnotes

  1. ^ Hoffer, A (1990). "The Adrenochrome Hypothesis and Psychiatry". Retrieved July 25, 2011.
  2. ^ "ACS : Orthomolecular Medicine". American Cancer Society. June 19, 2007. Archived from the original on March 29, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2008.
  3. ISBN 1-55009-213-8
    .
  4. PMID 1699646
    .
  5. ^
    PMID 14350806
    .
  6. ^ a b Barrett, Stephen (July 12, 2000). "Orthomolecular Therapy". Quackwatch.
  7. ^ "Poverty and the past on the Prairies: Farmer recounts early days of Jewish settlements".
  8. ^ a b c d e Dyck, 2008, p. 26.
  9. ^ a b Hoffer, A (February 21, 2010). "Abram Hoffer's CV and writings". Weeks Clinic for Corrective Medicine and Psychiatry. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  10. ^ a b Wipond R (August 11, 2006). "An interview with Dr. Abram Hoffer". Focus. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  11. ^ MD, Abram Hoffer. "DoctorYourself.com – Cancer Therapy: Vitamin C". www.doctoryourself.com. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  12. ^ Hoffer, A. "The History of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine". Archived from the original on May 20, 2011. Retrieved June 18, 2011.
  13. ^ "International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine History". International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine. Archived from the original on April 28, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
  14. ^ "Self published". Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre.
  15. ^ "Controversial Victoria psychiatrist Abram Hoffer dies at age 92". Times Colonist. May 28, 2009. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  16. ^ Eisner, B (February 11, 2004). "Humphrey Osmond Inventor of the Word "Psychedelic" Dies". Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  17. ^ Dyck, 2008, p. 37.
  18. ^ Dyck, 2008, p. 84-5.
  19. ^ Hoffer, A (1970). "Treatment of alcoholism with psychedelic therapy". In Aaronson BS; Osmond H (eds.). Psychedelics, The Uses and Implications of Psychedelic Drugs. Anchor Books.
  20. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-532357-3
    .
  21. ^
    ISBN 978-0-12-374240-7
    .
  22. ISBN 978-0-12-374634-4
    .
  23. ^ a b Lipton M; et al. (July 1973). Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry (Technical report). American Psychiatric Association.
  24. ^ Hoffer A, Osmond H (1976). Megavitamin Therapy, In Reply To The American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry (PDF) (Technical report). Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation.
  25. ^ Kelm H (1978). "A Reply To The American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry: The HOD Test" (PDF). Orthomolecular Psychiatry. 7 (4): 258–262.
  26. PMID 4569673
    .
  27. doi:10.1093/schbul/1.3.5
    .
  28. S2CID 38857700
    .
  29. ISBN 0-8156-0224-3
    .
  30. doi:10.1126/science.160.3830.868
    .
  31. ^ Lipton, Morris, et al. Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry: A Report of the APA Task Force on Vitamin Therapy in Psychiatry. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1973.

References

External links
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