Flax Oil and Mood Disorders II
Omega-3 fatty acids can help in cases of agoraphobia, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, some of the most tragic mental conditions afflicting modern men and women. Just listen to what the patients of Harvard physician Donald Rudin have to say...
Case Reports from the Flax Files
# Kevin was 32 years old. He stayed home almost all of the time and was diagnosed with agoraphobia, a condition in which certain situations, especially being alone in unfamiliar places triggers almost unbearable anxiety.
Kevin suffered from many other unrelated physical complaints, including very dry skin on his hands and shins, tinnitus, spastic colon, spasms of the esophagus, poor sleep, and fatigue.
A psychiatrist at the time prescribed valium. It did not seem to help much at all.
That was when he was sent to the offices of Donald Rudin, a Harvard-educated physician and former director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute in Philadelphia. It was during this time that Dr. Rudin began to follow a hunch that something was missing from the average American diet, a special group of fats, called the omega-3 fatty acids, which are derived from only a few foods, particularly several species of seafood and flaxseed.
Following some 2H months of taking three tablespoons of flax oil daily, Kevin's physical complaints improved markedly, including the disappearance of his tinnitus, and lessening of his ordinary headaches and migraines. After one year, Kevin's anxiety whenever he left home disappeared.
# Marta was 35 and had been housebound for eight years, suffering severe anxiety attacks once or twice a month. She also suffered from dry skin, dandruff, food allergies, premenstrual syndrome, arthritis, chronic fatigue, and low blood pressure (hypotension). After about one year of supplementation with two tablespoons of flax oil daily, Marta had found that she could leave her home and travel quite extensively without feeling her usual unbearable anxiety. Most of her physical symptoms also improved.
# Suffering from schizophrenia since she was 16 and now 26, Debi Erin had gone through many hospitalizations in an effort to help her to overcome the daily visual and auditory hallucinations, intrusive thoughts and bizarre, sometimes violent, behavior that she was experiencing. After conventional treatment failed their daughter, her parents sought the help of Dr. Rudin.
"I must admit at first the whole idea sounded bizarre," Debi recalls. "Both my mother and I were skeptical. Was this doctor a mad scientist pushing some kind of snake oil? After all the research trials I had been through, surely this was the silliest idea yet."
"I tried Dr. Rudin's approach anyway. I took 2 tablespoons of linseed [flaxseed] oil plus a vitamin E supplement. . . Oh well, how could it hurt me? I said to myself. Thirty minutes later, I noticed how calm I was becoming. The sensation of worms in my nerves and quivering in my muscles diminished considerably. After one week on this simple program, my ten-year psychosis subsided. . . I've been free of schizophrenia ever since."
Debi has currently completed her college education and is working as a registered nurse.
Nutritional Flax Files
These are only a few examples from the dramatic results Dr. Rudin's patients experienced when omega-3 fatty acid-rich flax oil was added to their diets. Could a simple regimen of additional omega-3 fatty acids help persons whom medical science had failed? The answer appears to be yes.
We should call this report the F Files, much like the popular Fox television series The X Files. Because at the time of his work in the early 1980's, Dr. Rudin was working in an area of science that had been almost totally neglected by modern researchers.
Omega-3 fats make up one of the two families of fats, the omega-3's and the omega-6's, that are absolutely essential to human life. Yet, Dr. Rudin knew that the dietary availability of omega-3 fatty acids had declined to only 20 percent of the level found in diets a century ago.
Also, even during the 1980's when his initial pilot study involving 44 patients took place and nutrition was on so many minds, he observed, "Although we live in a time of nutrition consciousness, when everyone is enthusiastic about restoring nutrients to the diet, omega-3 until recently was virtually ignored."
As a researcher with thirty-five years of experience, Dr. Rudin suspected that many modern diseases were signs of a new kind of malnutrition, an epidemic affecting Americans.
In other words, in his own way, Dr. Rudin was uncovering a supernatural phenomenon the key role that omega-3 fatty acids play in maintaining optimal mental health.
With so many patients at his clinic that simply could not be helped by medical drugs and procedures, the doctor wondered what would happen if the omega-3 fats were restored to their diets. Since Dr. Rudin worked in a clinical setting, he decided to set up a small but representative pilot study, using volunteers suffering from chronic ailments that were not being cured by current conventional treatments. He would add the missing omega-3 oils to their diets and see what happened.
More Case Reports from the Flax Files
# Hilda was a 43-year-old homemaker and mother who had suffered from unipolar depression for six years. Although lithium helped somewhat, almost uncontrollable, violent, murderous thoughts continued to plague her. She suffered from extensive muscle pain, an irritable bowel, and dry, scaly skin, symptoms that may indicate an omega-3 fatty acid deficiency.
# While maintaining her regular medications, she started on three tablespoons of flaxseed oil daily, and her physical ailments began to lessen within only a few weeks. Around the seventh week, her murderous, violent thoughts began to lift. The sense of calm that pervaded her life was something she hadn't experienced in ages, not since the onset of her psychosis.
Around the fourth month, Hilda increased her dosage from three to five tablespoons daily. She went into a mania, the first she ever experienced. Returning to only three tablespoons of flax daily, her mania lifted. "This... demonstrates the need for dosage control, notes Dr. Rudin.
By the seventh month, Hilda's dry skin had completely disappeared and, that winter, she did not develop sore, fissured fingers as she had for so long. Her improvements held steady at the time of the conclusion of the study.
# Ricardo was a 28-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who, for eight years, had suffered from bizarre thoughts and hallucinations. When he watched world events on television, he was convinced that his thoughts influenced their outcome. When he tried to sleep at night, he suffered through "evening movies," hallucinations that lingered for an hour, and that his medication simply could not control. The paranoia that permeated his mind made being with others almost impossible.
Upon taking two to four tablespoons of flax oil daily for a few weeks, the "evening movies" completely stopped, and, over the next few months, his paranoia declined. Anti-psychotic medication still was required, but family members observed that he could enjoy "newfound ease and pleasure in the company of others." Again, dosage is a critical issue. When Ricardo experimented with six to eight tablespoons of flax oil daily, he experienced racing thoughts and feelings that could have led to another psychotic episode. Reducing the dosage brought his condition under reasonable control.
To be sure, not every patient under Dr. Rudin's care experienced such breakthroughs. But of the twelve mental patients whom he treated with flax oil, nine experienced nonpsychotic interludes while using the natural medicine. According to Rudin, "This suggested that improvement was possible on the Omega-3 program."
Abram Hoffer, Other Experts Confirm Rudin's Results
Upon publication of his findings, other doctors began utilizing flax oil as part of their healing protocol for helping patients to regain their mental health. After treating some 27 patients with chronic mental illness for ten years or more, Dr. Abram Hoffer in 1993 reported on his results. While under conventional therapy, around five percent of schizophrenic patients may experience significant gains in mental health. However, in his practice, utilizing omega-3 oils in addition to other nutritional supplements, some eighteen patients could go on to function normally in the everyday world; three improved greatly; five moderately; and, one not at all.
Most recently, it has been suggested that omega-3 fatty acids act in a manner similar to that of lithium carbonate and valproate, two effective treatments for bipolar disorder. To test whether omega-3 fatty acids could help, researchers conducted a four-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, comparing omega-3 fatty acids (9.6 g/d) vs placebo (olive oil), in addition to usual treatment, in 30 patients with bipolar disorder. The researchers found that the omega-3 fatty acid patient group had a significantly longer period of remission than the placebo group. In addition, for nearly every other outcome measure, the omega-3 fatty acid group performed better than the placebo group.
The Doctor's Prescription
Clearly, the work of Donald Rudin opens up new pathways of healing in cases of tragic mental states. As we have seen, dosage with flax oil is critical and varies from two to eight tablespoons daily, according to Rudin.
Probably idiotic on my part, starch and maize in them, but I cannot starve. Brown rice has taken over from bread nowadays, but I am warming up this week for my first buckwheat experiment. Should be fun. 
