Mental Health
Biochemistry & Nutrients
The correct nutrients can assist with balancing the biochemistry. Nutrients can help to enhance, and in some cases, may reduce the need for medication.
BBH trained doctors are not just treating the symptoms, they are looking for the underlying contributing causes. BBH trained doctors take a detailed patient history, looking for events which may trigger changes in a patient’s health. Addressing underlying biochemical imbalances can help a patient return to optimal health. By understanding there are underlying biochemical issues that may contribute to symptoms, helps to remove the stigma from a mental health diagnosis, and gives hope.
Bio Balance Health is not a medical practice; we train doctors in these skills and the doctors incorporate these skills into their own practice. Many trained doctors have long wait lists because of the positive experiences for their patients.
Currently, patients with problems with their mental health undergo detailed questions which allow the practitioner to categorise their symptoms into groups like Bipolar, OCD, depression, anxiety, Schizophrenia and more. This is the DSM5 categorisation process.
The same symptoms, and more, when used by a Bio Balance Health trained doctor are clustered into groups related to their biochemistry. This work was developed in the private clinic of Psychiatrist Dr Carl Pfeiffer and continued after his death, by Chemical Engineer/ Mathematician, William J Walsh, PhD. Bill’s skill developed patterns related to the biochemistry and developed the use of the appropriate nutrients, for each individual, in high enough doses to supply the co-factors and co-enzymes needed, to stimulate repair and return to closer normal functioning.
This has resulted in better patient outcomes (Effectiveness of Targeted Nutrient Therapy) and an enhancement of the effect of psychiatric medication.
Zinc and Mental Health Disorders
In our work with large numbers of patients with various mental health disorders the most common biochemical disorder was of low zinc levels and the most important therapeutic task was to correct this deficiency.
From our own work and that of peer reviewed articles from various other centres we are confident to state the following:
Low zinc levels are a predictor of treatment resistant depression.
Zinc plus SSRI is more effective in treating depression than zinc plus placebo.
When we started this work in 2004 the pathology companies cited the mean plasma zinc concentration in the general public as 20mm/l whereas the mean zinc level in our mental health patients was 14mm/l. As time progressed and thousands of zinc levels were measured in mental health patients the pathology companies reduced their reference ranges of zinc to reflect a mean plasma zinc of 14. Whilst this reduction in the “normal” zinc range may partially reflect a general drop in zinc levels due to inadequate dietary intake, it more likely is due to the high percentage of samples coming from mental health patients.
Zinc deficiency correction is not complete until the plasma level approaches 20mm/l.