Dr. Carl Pfeiffer’s 29 medical causes of schizophrenia

When people first fall into the rabbit hole of schizophrenia, the logical question to ask is “what causes schizophrenia?” A psychiatrist’s standard answer to this question is that “nobody knows” what causes it and then, rather inexplicably will hasten to add “but there are good treatments available to manage it”. Technically, the psychiatrist is correct, at least as far as the cause goes, because no medical explanation has yet evolved to apply in a general sense to all of its victims.

As a parent, I want to know what causes my child’s schizophrenia. I’m not interested in schizophrenia in a population.

A lady I am acquainted with was convinced that a particular acne medication may have triggered her sixteen year old daughter’s psychosis. The doctor told her that her daughter’s psychosis was of unknown origin. She was very, very angry because she felt the doctor patronized her by denying possible causality in the case of the acne medication. It is also patronizing of a doctor to believe that he or she knows more than the mother or father as to what makes their child tick.

It is difficult to say what causes psychosis in a particular individual because there may be multiple factors involved, but that is not to say that one shouldn’t look for cause. I am convinced that from knowing cause comes cure. Cure is a word that you are not supposed to use in the context of schizophrenia.

In his book Nutrition and Mental Illness, Dr. Carl Pfeiffer states that there are 29 medical causes of schizophrenia, ranging from pellagra to drug intoxications, to heavy metal toxicity, to wheat-gluten insensitivity, to chronic candidiasis, to a host of other rare and not so rare ailments. That does not necessarily mean that your schizophrenia can be pinned down to one of these 29 medical causes. What I find incredible is that no doctor in Chris’s hospitals bothered to ask me if there was a family history of any of these ailments or called for tests to rule them out.

It is worth noting that Dr. Pfeiffer is referring to 29 “medical” causes of schizophrenia. Half the fun of schizophrenia is figuring out the non-medical, i.e. psychological causes of schizophrenia. Understanding and treating the emotional underpinnings of schizophrenia has been pushed aside over the past few decades in favor of the biochemical model. I am getting ahead of myself here. There will be plenty of time to delve into this fascinating subject in later blogs.

Why diet isn’t everything

The state-of-the art research that I mentioned in my last post links many disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, autism, etc. to wheat and gluten intolerances. Chris’s doctor determined that he suffers from candidiasis, a systemic overgrowth of the yeastlike fungus Candida albicans. This fungus is normally found in the intestines, but an overpopulation can occur due to a number of factors, among them weakened immunity, poor digestion, a diet high in foods that tend to foster yeast, or the use of antibiotics, which kill off essential helpful bacteria that aid in maintaining the proper balance of flora in the intestines.

Candidiasis can be a lifelong problem. It interferes with digestion and nutrient absorption, which in turn affects physical and mental health. Nutritional deficiencies further contribute to intestinal dysfunction and candidiasis. The two produce a negative feedback loop toward deteriorating mental health. Eventually the brain itself becomes overwhelmed by yeast. Various combinations of vitamins and minerals are prescribed in addition to restricting or eliminating wheat, gluten and dairy products from the diet. In addition to the wheat/gluten/dairy intolerance another widely implicated factor in schizophrenia is excess copper.

Some people have been known to recover quickly from schizophrenia by taking just supplements and changing their diet. A lot of people do not. Dr. Dietrich Klinghart, a German physician who with practices in Germany and in the United States, maintains that if schizophrenia is not cured at the physical level (level I – vitamins, herbs, nutrition, etc.) the problem most likely resides at level IV of the healing pyramid. Level IV is the intuitive level of dreams, trance, meditative states, out-of-body experiences, and the collective unconscious. Dr. Klinghardt’s five levels of healing form a healing pyramid, with the upper levels exerting a trickle-down effect on your state of physical and mental health. Healing cannot take place at a lower level if there is an unresolved issue at a higher level.

Having worked with many of the therapies discussed in Dr. Klinghardt’s healing pyramid I am mindful that all the good work that vitamin and diet support can accomplish can be overruled by the mind. Until the mind is ready, the body will not follow. I have seen this recently in Chris. He was doing really well, he was no longer on medications, he was taking vitamin supplements and he was adhering to a recommended diet. We were all in shock when he started to become unravelled. His mind, I am convinced, put the brakes on further progress. He was becoming a victim of his own success. Heartened by his progress up up until then, my husband and I had begun to encourage him to go back to university full time, to develop himself further as a musician, to think in terms of possibilities. He panicked. Psychosis was his escape hatch.

Why he panicked is goes to the heart of the matter. Getting to the essence of cause is where schizophrenia begins to get really, really interesting. The trip is a long one.