Parasites Archives

Dr. Stoll - what should she do?

I have copied below something you posted that I found in the archives when looking up info on bipolar. I am trying to help my friend. She has started doing SR. But, when I read this article, I started wondering if she should investigate a possible connection between some type of infection and her bipolar diagnosis. If her bipolar symptoms were being caused by an underlying infection, would she see improvement upon taking meds for bipolar? She improves with meds, but wondering if she should look into the infection connection? Thanks.

THE OVERLOOKED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MENTAL

By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
September 13, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james16.htm

Psychiatric disease should be diagnosed only after careful exclusion
of medical conditions that could produce the patients symptoms.
Unfortunately very few mental health care providers are aware of the
multitude of circumstances in which mental symptoms are precipitated
by an infectious illness. A valuable clue that a mental problem may
be infectious rather than psychiatric is sudden onset in a
previously stable individual.

Dr. Paul Fink, past president of the American Psychiatric
Association, has acknowledged that every psychiatric disorder in the
Psychiatric Diagnostic Symptoms Manual IV (DSM-!V) can be caused by
Lyme Disease. This proves that every known psychiatric disorder can
be caused by an infection (Borrelia burgdorfi Bb spirochete). So far
all cases of Alzheimer's disease tested for the Borrelia burgdorfi
Bb spirochete, which causes Lyme Disease, have tested positive.

Conventional medical practice in the United States largely ignores
the possibility of parasitic disease. There are several reasons for
this:

a.. When a disease is never diagnosed it is easy to assume that it
does not exist. Parasites are often overlooked in the U.S.

b.. There is a shortage of technicians who are skilled in identifying
parasitic organisms.

c.. Spending one's day studying microscopic sample of stool specimens
probably does not attract very many laboratory personnel.

d.. There is a common misconception that parasitic problems are
primarily found in tropical countries and are rare in countries like
the U.S.A. To illustrate how many health care practitioners can be
fooled by parasitic disease consider the case of Carolyn Razor.
Upbeat, healthy, energetic, psychologist Carolyn Raser returned from
a vacation in Bhutun with severe depression, exhaustion, and such
swelling in her joints she was unable to open a hotel room door. Her
third M.D. diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and started multiple
drugs. Her depression, lethargy and exhaustion persisted after
100 treatments by assorted acupuncturists, chiropractors, and
rehabilitation specialists. A call to the Research Institute for
Infectious Mental Illness led to the discovery of three protozoan
parasites and a compromised secretory IGA system. Three weeks after
eliminating her infection she was no longer depressed, her
exhaustion was gone and her zest for life had been restored.

To make the proper diagnosis of psychiatric symptoms even more
complex it is now well established that the overgrowth of candida
(yeast) organisms, fungi, mycoplasma, and dangerous anerobic
organiasms in the intestinal tract after antibiotic therapy, high
sugar intake, and illnesses which injure the lining of the intestine
can cause impaired brain function (seizures, confusion, poor
memory, depression, learning difficulties, headaches and short
attention span). These brain symptoms are caused by absoption of
neurotoxic substances produced by mycoplasma, fungi, borrelia, yeast
and anerobic organisms. These neurotoxic substances also commonly
cause injury to the hypothalamus which leads to impaired production
of endocrine hormones. Therefore, patients with intestinal pathogen
overgrowth often manifest impaired function of the thyroid
gland (hypothyroidism) and adrenal insufficiency (Addison's
Disease). Another factor that may contribute to this hormonal
failure is the consumption of cholesterol by mycoplasma in nervous
tissue which decreases the building substance (cholesterol) needed
to make estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, aldactone,
and cortisone. Persons with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid
gland) often do not manifest fever when they have infections which
may lead the clinician away from considering an infectious problem.

The psychological treatment of chronic mental illness is often
lengthy and of marginal value. Frank Strick, Clinical Research
Director of the Research Institute for Infectious Mental Illness,
has gathered a large amount of information about how commonly mental
symptoms are not appreciated to be originating[1] from infectious
problems.

Four types of infectious problems are capable of producing mental
symptoms. These are infections well recognized for causing
psychiatric problems (pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis,
malaria, Legionaires Disease, syphilis, chlamydia, typhoid fever,
diphtheria, HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes). Research done at Johns
Hokins Children's Center and published in the Archives of General
Psychiatry in 2001 disclosed that mothers with evidence of
Herpes Simplex Type 2 infection during pregnancy were 6 times more
likely to have a child who later developed schizophrenia than
mothers without herpes infections.

Parasitic infections which invade the brain (neurocysticerccosis)
manifest depression and psychosis in more than 65 % of cases. These
tapeworms produce cysts, swelling, and encephalitis in brains of
patients. Other parasitic infections can produce psychiatric
symptoms without direct brain invasion (giardia, ascaris psychosis,
trichinosis, Lyme Disease) which clear after effective therapy.
Meningitis or encephalitis was found in 24 % of 1300 cases of
trichinosis reported from Germany.

Acute infection with Toxoplasmosis Gondi can produce personality
changes and psychosis including delusions and auditory
hallucinations. T. Gondii can alter behavior, neurotransmitter
function and accounts for approximately 25 % of chorioretinitis
usually contracted congenitally. A large study of mentally
handicapped persons revealed that the incidence of t.gondii
infection in schizophrenic patients was twice that of control
subjects. German research has revealed that first onset
schizophrenia patients have a 42 % incidence of antibodies to
toxoplasma compared to 11 % in control subjects. T. Gondi
usually is spread to humans from cats. Two studies have revealed
that exposure to cats in childhood was a risk factor for the
development of schizophrenia.

Two of the drugs used to treat psychosis and bipolar disorder (Haldol
and Valproic Acid) inhibit the growth of t. gondii in cerebrospinal
fluid and blood at concentrations below that being treated with
these therapies suggesting that improved mental status might
actually be due to killing t. gondii not anti-psychotic effects. The
antipsychotic drugs thorazine, haldol and clozapine inhibit viral
replication. Patients with recent onset of schizophrenia have a
400 % increase in reverse transcripyase activity in their
cerebrospinal fluid which is seen in patients with infectious
retroviruses. Cerebrospinal fluid CSF from these recent onset
schizophrenia patients inoculated into New World Monkey cell lines
caused a ten fold increase in reverse transcriptase activity
suggesting that this injected CSF contained a replicating virus. Dr.
Darren Hart of Tulane Univ. Medical School found evidence of
antibodies to retrovirus in the blood of half the patients he tested
who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Malhotra
has demonstrated that the absence of CCR5?32 homozygotes in more
than 200 schizophrenic patients sharply increased the susceptibility
to retroviral infection. These pieces of evidence have led Johns
Hopkins virologist Robert Yolken and Psychiatry Professor Dr. E.
Fuller Torrey to believe that toxoplasmosis is one of several
infectious agents that cause most cases of schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder. Dr. Torrey noted that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
went from rare diseases in the late 19th century to common as cat
ownership became popular. Yolken designed studies that
showed that mothers of children who later developed psychosis were
4.5 times more likely to have antibodies to toxoplasmosis than
mothers of healthy children. Yolken also learned that patients with
schizophrenia of average duration of more than 22 years who also
tested positive for cytomegalovirus (21 patients) experienced
significant improvement in psychiatric symptoms when
treated with Valacyclovir[2] an antiviral drug for 8 weeks.

Streptococcal infections have been followed in some children by the
abrupt onset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder within a few weeks.

Use of the antiviral drug Amantadine has produced greatly shortened
hospitalizations and rapid remission of psychiatric symptoms in
Germany when given to patients testing positive for Borna Disease
Virus BDV. Smaller studies in the U.S. disclosed that up to half of
Bipolar and Schizophrenic patients test positive for BDV compared to
none in healthy controls.

For obvious reasons toxoplasmosis has attracted the most attention.
However, many other infectious agents particularly parasitic
infections can disable normal mental function by depleting the host
of essential nutrients, interfering with enzyme and neuroimmune
function, and releasing massive amounts of waste products, enteric
poisons, and toxins which disable brain metabolism. Mature tapeworms
can lay a million eggs a day and roundworms, which afflict 25 %
of the worlds population, can lay 200,000 eggs daily. The brain
requires 25 % of the body's oxygen, nutrients, and glucose even
though it makes up only 3 % of the body's weight. Mental patients
were found to have a 53.8 % incidence of parasitic infection in a 2
year study conducted by the Univ. of Ancona involving 238 inpatient
residents in 4 Italian psychiatric institutions.

Cognitive dysfunction and chronic emotional stress with symptoms of
apathy, exhaustion, confusion, poor appetite, memory loss, nervous
stomach, social withdrawal, loss of sex drive and motivation are
often attributed to depression when they were actually caused by
infection.

Many parasitic infections escape diagnosis because standard stool
parasite studies pick up only 10 % of active infections. At times
this is caused by inconsistent shedding patterns and other cases are
missed because the parasites are outside the intestine. The World
Health Organization states that 2 billion people have worms but
these are rarely seen in stool exams. Many restaurants are
staffed by persons from foreign lands where parasites are common so
exposure to parasitic infection can occur in most U.S. restaurants.

To overcome these failures the Research Institute for Infectious
Mental Illness suggests ova and parasite microscopy, multifluid
antigen and antibody detection, stool cultures, enzyme immunoassays,
imaging techniques, and extensive evaluation of the patients history
and clinical information to discover chronic infections. Patients
diagnosed as chronic candidiasis (yeast) may actually have more
significant infections which are preventing long term cure. Curing
hidden infections often results in return of normal brain
metabolism. Fever and antibody elevation often disappear in patients
with neurotoxin injury to the immune system and thyroid hypofunction
caused by hypothalamic toxicity. Rebuilding the host's immune system
and restoring integrity of the intestines will help prevent relapse.
Care to not provide premature nutritional supplements that are
growth factors for certain microorganisms is vital. Screening tests
for heavy metal toxicity, environmental chemical exposure, molds,
electromagnetic stressors, abnormal glucose metabolism, brain
allergies, food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter
imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, ph abnormalities, and
dietary correction can improve cognitive function.

In my opinion the arguments about the failure to diagnose infections
causing brain symptoms presented by Frank Strick are persuasive and
sound. Most psychiatric consultations almost certainly are not
concerned with exploring diagnostic considerations outside the
psychiatric realm. This whole field of psychiatric diagnosis needs
to be reconsidered in view of the strong evidence that
toxoplasmosis, parasitic infections, borrelia burgdorfi, candida,
borna disease virus, streptococcus, and other infectious agents are
capable of producing impaired brain function with symptoms that will
generate a psychiatric diagnosis in a conventional psychiatrist's
office. There is a real possibility that many, perhaps most
patients, have an infectious illness that is correctable not a
permanent psychiatric impairment. This failure to discover infectious
causes for psychiatric symptoms is tragic because many persons are
vegetating in psychiatric facilities for the remainder of their
lives, instead of recovering full health when their infection is
cured. My suggestion to readers is to consider exploring a
consultation with the Research Institute for Infectious Mental
Illness before accepting a psychiatric diagnosis that is likely
to lead to a lengthy and minimally effective therapy.

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