Mental and Neurological Disorders 109
suggests that the lack of a sense of well-being is a mental disorder
brought on by the environment rather than an inborn personality
trait. What sets the level of happiness, according to Dr. Richard
Depue, a psychologist at Cornell University, is the dopamine level in
the brain. He found that people who have high dopamine levels have
more positive feelings than those with lower levels of dopamine. Thus
a low set point of happiness, like chronic and bipolar depression, has
a physical component that may refl ect a genetic weakness, but the
high level of happiness of preliterate peoples indicates it is not a fi xed
trait. With the right nutritional environment it can be “reset”
upward.A Case of Severe Depression
Victor had been depressed, suicidal, and homicidal for a year and a half
and had been hospitalized four times during that period, once for six-
teen days. He had recently developed an especially disturbing symp-
tom: hallucinations. He heard a voice in his head. The voice called
himself Tom. Tom would tell Victor as he was walking along a street
and saw a pretty girl to kill her. On the other hand he would warn Vic-
tor not to cross a street on a red light. He didn’t want Victor to be killed
he said because that would mean that he, Tom, would also die. Victor
was on four antipsychotic drug medications. Of all the medications, the
worst one, in terms of side effects, is respiredone. This drug causes
people who have been taking it a long time to behave like robots.
I recommended that Victor start with 1 g of vitamin C and 1 g of
niacin (B 3 ) at the end of each meal and gradually work up to 3 g of niacin
and 3 g of vitamin C. After he was on the latter protocol for two months,
he lost all feelings of depression. His hallucinations also disappeared, so
his doctor took him off respiredone. Two months later, however, Victor
again felt depressed, although his hallucinations didn’t recur. I upped
his vitamin C intake to 4 g along with 4 g of niacin at the end of each
meal. In only one week, most of his depression had vanished.
The occasional sad episodes he still experienced had to have been
mild, as he was able to eliminate them through his own efforts. What
worked for him, he said, was to do something he liked. He loves tech-
nolog y, so whenever he felt depressed, he took machines apart and then
put them back together to see if they still worked. He claims this took