1018
CHAPTERMental and
Neurological
Disor der s
D
r. Rodolfo Llinas, a professor at New York University Medical
School, discovered an aberrant chemical reaction common to
depression, Parkinson’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tin-
nitus (ringing in the ears). But he didn’t go one step further and explore
the connection between brain disorders and abnormal blood chemis-
tries.^1 To do so would have amounted to an admission that curing brain
disorders depends on improving blood chemistry rather than manipu-
lating brain function.
The problem lies in the neuroscience researchers’ focus on the
brain’s extracellular functions—the motions of cells, the directions in
which neurotransmitters convey thoughts and feelings, the abnormal
shapes of cellular brain tissue—rather than on the internal function of
the brain cell. It is what is going on inside the cells that determines how
a cluster of brain cells behaves. There is as yet no way of visualizing a
cell’s internal functions. Since, however, the capillaries deliver nutri-
ents, hormones, and other raw materials to the cells and pick up the
by-products of their metabolic functions, a blood profi le gives some
idea as to what is going on inside the cell.
The connection between abnormal brain function and abnormal
blood chemistry is obvious. The typical blood chemistry of someone
with a mental disorder shows elevated levels of such heavy metals as
copper, iron, and lead; ammonia; estrogen; histamine (an indication of
allergies); and in schizophrenia alien chemicals called porphyrins and
kryptopyrroles. Even some nutrients, if present in such large amounts
that not all of them are used, can break down into acidic toxic waste that