tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post2247496080433023927..comments2023-06-05T11:51:38.383-04:00Comments on Evolutionary Psychiatry: More Zinc Nitty GrittyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04429177284200775781noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-647428667936204262014-06-10T14:03:30.536-04:002014-06-10T14:03:30.536-04:00Zinc can deplete Magnesium, so it's important ...Zinc can deplete Magnesium, so it's important to supplement them at different times of the day.Ravenroot Forest Farmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17819883922707543549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-58104229407286980672013-10-27T20:58:13.512-04:002013-10-27T20:58:13.512-04:00Thanks for the write up, I always love learning mo...Thanks for the write up, I always love learning more about zinc. I have pyroluria, so I have very high zinc needs. It is incredibly difficult to also balance zinc with copper - I'm almost balanced now after 2 years but I take quite a high dose of zinc at 150mg/day of picolinate. Otherwise, I have no improvements to zinc levels and no decrease in copper. I am monitored by my doctor by the way and test plasma zinc and serum copper every 3 months to check what is happening. I do feel much more mentally balanced (and less crazy PMT) with my copper and zinc balanced, but sometimes it feels like a losing battle to try to get copper levels down - my doctor believes it is leeched from the water pipes in to the drinking supply. Plasma zinc is the preferred measure, rather than serum zinc - serum zinc result is always higher, so the doctors that treat pyroluria always use plasma zinc and also check serum copper at the same time to assess the ratio. <br /><br />Will share this article with my doctor.sallycinnamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03437248293195579978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-87189736637980716272013-09-29T09:04:39.009-04:002013-09-29T09:04:39.009-04:00Thanks, Emily, very interesting. What about the bi...Thanks, Emily, very interesting. What about the biochemical/physiological findings (inflammation, zinc, etc.) associated with depression and other psychiatric diagnoses? I wonder if they have been convincingly demonstrated in unmedicated people. Even then, cause and effect would require unravelling, but in medicated people could such associations be confounded, in part at least, by toxic effects of psychiatric drugs?WilliamShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09021312909928686165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-57733054634361293372013-09-28T20:32:38.504-04:002013-09-28T20:32:38.504-04:00A month or two ago I met a woman who had been a ps...A month or two ago I met a woman who had been a psych nurse in the 1940s and for the next 25 years. She remembers insulin shock therapy and how long everyone stayed in the hospital and how sick they got when there were no medications to work with. I must say the sickest, most psychotic individuals I have seen were medication naiive. Schizophrenia has changed quite a bit, far less hebrephrenia, catatonia is extraordinarily rare, probably because the medications work well to stop those particular pathologies, though the medicines have severe shortcomings as well. I think the meat of the question you pose has to do with antidepressants and stimulants. If these medicines are applied early and/or incorrectly to you risk kindling a bipolar disorder? Some of the confounds can be answered by comparing different regions. In Europe people tend to be dosed lower and for shorter periods. I had a patient treated in Europe for a psychotic break with a 5 day course of a low dose antipsychotic, which is not what would happen, in general, in America. And on the West coast they tend to use aggressive doses (in fact our smaller doses are called "East Coast Doses" by the cowboys out west.) The serious confound is that people who get more treatment, more contacts, more attention and all the little bits of therapy that come with each contact tend to do better (on a large scale, there are always individuals who have had crappy treatment that makes things much worse), and people who utilize medical services more are more likely to be medicated. So that confound makes medicine look better than it probably is.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04429177284200775781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-73211056118121151062013-09-28T20:21:11.804-04:002013-09-28T20:21:11.804-04:00Iron diminishes zinc absorption, so either don'...Iron diminishes zinc absorption, so either don't take the supplements at the same time, or as long as the zinc supplements are somewhat robust absorbing less wouldn't make too much difference. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04429177284200775781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-16427088684435168332013-09-27T07:37:20.973-04:002013-09-27T07:37:20.973-04:00Emily, do you think it is completely clear that th...Emily, do you think it is completely clear that the brain pathologies seen in depression, schizophrenia, etc. are not due, in part at least, to the medications now used so quickly and universally? Have completely unmedicated people been shown to have the same pathologies as the medicated ones? Having read some of Dr. Peter Breggin's work, I wonder if psychiatric drugs could be a huge potential confounder in psychiatric research.WilliamShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09021312909928686165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-5280892349908924292013-09-26T18:19:18.615-04:002013-09-26T18:19:18.615-04:00Do you have any thoughts/ideas on how to take both...Do you have any thoughts/ideas on how to take both iron and zinc without one "outsmarting" the other, by chance? I take multi-minerals, including extra zinc picolinate and p5p with some folinic acid, as I am a high zinc user (perhaps something to do with my hyperhydrosis). I also tend to become low in iron (likely to do with my frustrating menstrual cycle), so I take extra iron bisglycinate to try compensating. Feeling like I'm defeating myself taking both ........stressedmothermaxedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02563429380721868512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-89394255543353940652013-09-25T13:55:25.855-04:002013-09-25T13:55:25.855-04:00Ketogenic diets seem to increase neuroprotective k...Ketogenic diets seem to increase neuroprotective kynurenic acid as well: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00702-011-0750-2<br />(at least in rats that is). Potatoes also seem to be a good source of nutritional kynurenic acid: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11130-012-0283-3<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09032314298854843204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-77106142216144266842013-09-23T16:36:11.252-04:002013-09-23T16:36:11.252-04:00@Steve zinc behaves in a stressed system very much...@Steve zinc behaves in a stressed system very much like magnesium, and of course the first thing we do in the ICU (or maybe the second) is grab a magnesium level and then replete that sucker by the bagful because the super sick waste magnesium like crazy, and you die very quickly when the levels drop. Zinc depletion won't kill you quite that fast…but it would stand to reason that it should be dropping like a rock, and supplementation might help. I haven't even looked for these sorts of studies.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04429177284200775781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3045634714760830992.post-91813371761968288052013-09-22T22:26:52.737-04:002013-09-22T22:26:52.737-04:00All of my hands-on clinical work is in the hospita...All of my hands-on clinical work is in the hospital setting. I never see other docs order serum zinc levels, nor do I order them. Perhaps that should change.<br /><br />BTW, I like the background of your diagram.<br /><br />-SteveSteve Parker, M.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00981614468565811839noreply@blogger.com