The word Orthomolecular originally applied to a medical therapy which used vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to make sure that the body has the correct molecules (vitamins, minerals and other nutrients) for optimal health in the correct potencies and correct balances to overcome specific genetic vitamin dependencies that almost all of us have.
The word arose over three decades ago from the work of a small group of medical doctors who were also biochemists and who realized that whatever else the human body was, it was also a group of chemicals, all working together and engaged in the very complicated series of chemical reactions (called "metabolism") that keeps us healthy and alive.
As doctors, they also realized that if the chemical reactions in the cells of our body proceeded properly, the end-result would be life that was strong and long-lasting, and if the chemical reactions did not proceed properly, the life that was produced would be weaker, more prone to disease and disabilities, wear out the body, and would end sooner.
The Body Is Made Of Chemicals
As biochemists, these doctor-scientists looked at the human body as a chemical life-machine composed of millions of ongoing chemical reactions that work together to produce the end product: healthy life.
With the tools of modern medical and scientific technology, they were able to understand more than ever before how the chemistry of our cells worked and how important properly balanced cellular chemistry is to a healthy, well-functioning body.
Disease And Imbalanced Cellular Chemistry Go Hand-In-Hand
With the special insight of two scientific skills (biochemistry and medicine), they were able to see the relationship of diseases to chemical problems of the body and that the chemical problems (resulting in chemical imbalances) were almost all located within the cells of the body.
They found that with every disease, there were chemical imbalances in the body's cellular chemistry. And they began to find that many of these imbalances could be corrected with adequate potencies of vitamin, minerals and other cellular nutrients. Here's why simple vitamins, minerals and other nutrients could render effective results.
Vitamins "Grease the Rails" Of Cellular Chemistry
The chemical reactions of the body are helped along by chemicals (molecules) called enzymes. Enzymes control the rates of chemical reactions in the body. Every enzyme is made up of a protein manufactured in the body and a vitamin (which cannot be manufactured in the body, or the body cannot manufacture in adequate quantities).
If there is a problem with a chemical reaction in the body...if it is not balanced properly...supplying an abundance of the specific vitamin which is part of the enzyme will often help the body to form more of the enzyme needed and thus "grease the rails" of the reaction and bring it closer to optimal.
Since everyone is different, this doesn't always work. But it does no harm to the cell because vitamins have a tremendously high level of safety, and our initial evaluations (interviewing doctors, nurses and patients) in 1976 indicated that orthomolecular medicine (rebalancing cellular chemistry) generally appears to have about twice the effectiveness of drugs on patient improvement (79%-80% effectiveness vs 30%-40% for other medical modalities), without the tremendous dangers of overdosing or serious side-effects that drugs bring.
For example, while standard psychiatric treatment is statistically reported by the American Psychiatric Association to help about one-third of psychiatric patients1, as far back as the 1950's and 1960's, Dr. Abram Hoffer was reporting that about two-thirds of schizophrenic and senile dementia patients were getting better with orthomolecular medicine (including super-abundant potencies of niacin and vitamin C.)2
- In 1939, in their first published evaluation of effectiveness, the American Psychiatric Association reported a 34% improvement rate from medical psychiatry. This percentage of improvement has remained relatively constant ever since.
- Hoffer, A, Nicotinic acid: an adjunct in the treatment of schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 1963 1963 120:171
While our evaluations about the effectiveness of orthomolecular medicine were not rigorously controlled experiments, they do reflect what doctors, nurses and patients reported to us. Perhaps the most important point is that even if orthomolecular therapy did no better than other medical modalities, it did no damage.
Orthomolecular Expands From Psychiatry To All Types Of Medicine
Though the first meaning of orthomolecular (rebalancing body chemistry to help with mental problems) started with biochemist-doctors who were psychiatrists, other types of doctors soon realized that the principles of rebalancing cellular chemistry could be applied to the entire body. They began seeing similar improvement rates as with psychiatry, and the meaning of orthomolecular medicine expanded to include whole body medicine (rebalancing cellular chemistry to fight diseases).
Orthomolecular Expands To Include All Types Of Cellular Stressors
As the orthomolecular movement grew, orthomolecular doctors broadened their view of rebalancing cellular chemistry with just vitamins and minerals and other nutrients to protecting cellular chemistry from becoming imbalanced by vectors ("things" or conditions) that stress the cell and thus interfere with well-balanced cellular chemistry. They termed these "cellular stressors".
This protection involved locating and eliminating or reducing as much as possible "cellular stressors" that enter the body (through the mouth, the nose or the skin) and adversely affect the cell and cellular chemistry.
Their treatment, as orthomolecular doctors, was simple: Before using any of the standard medical approaches (drugs, surgery, radiation, etc.), they worked with various vitamins, minerals and cellular nutrients (as well as beneficial lifestyle modifications) to rebalance the patient's cellular chemistry to as close to optimal as possible.
Vitamin Dependencies From Inborn Errors Of Metabolism
Metabolism means the total of all the chemical reactions in the body. For many decades, science has been building a list of genetically imperfect chemical reactions that people suffer from. There are approximately 2000 recognized imperfect chemical reactions in cellular chemistry. These are known as Inborn Errors of Metabolism. These occur because the chemical reactions in question are blocked or slowed down by some chemical problem or blockage.
Over decades, working with many thousands of patients, orthomolecular doctors discovered that each patient has their own individual genetic makeup and, unfortunately, this almost always includes genetic errors they are born with that partially or completely block cellular chemical reactions (Inborn Errors of Metabolism) and create different demands for different potencies and balances of vitamins.
Orthomolecular doctors found that many of these Inborn Errors of Metabolism can be corrected (or partly-corrected) by adding higher potencies of specific vitamins (as well as minerals and other nutrients) to increase the body's concentration of the necessary enzyme and thus "grease the rails" to bring the specific cellular chemical reaction closer to optimal.
Cellular Stressors
They regarded anything that interfered with optimal cellular efficiency as a cellular stressor. They identified dozens of cellular stressors, such as processed foods essentially devoid of natural nutrients, not enough dietary fiber, vitamin and mineral deficiencies from hereditary vitamin dependencies, lack of sleep, smog, pollution, environmental toxins and heavy metals, attacks by germs, stress, worry, trauma, and even eating the same good foods too frequently and thus developing food hypersensitivities (that act like allergies and are ultimately felt at the cellular level).
"Tools" To Help Rebalance Cellular Chemistry
Being biochemists as well as medical doctors, they understood how the chemistry of the cells should work and when they saw problems of imbalanced cellular chemistry, they used what cellular rebalancing tools were available to help restore the balance of cellular chemistry to optimal levels
There weren't many tools. In fact, they were limited to what could be done from outside the cell: but even these few tools were very effective at bringing cellular chemistry closer to optimal. So they developed a set of techniques to rebalance people's cellular chemistry closer to optimal.
- As much as possible, supply the cells with the nutrients (chemicals) they need for optimal health.
- Diet and vitamin-mineral-nutrient supplementation.
- As much as possible, ensure that the nutrients actually get to all the cells of the body.
- Regular exercise regimen, especially cardiovascular exercise.
- As much as possible, ensure that waste products are removed from the cells (via the bloodstream, of course).
- Regular exercise regimen, especially cardiovascular exercise.
- As much as possible, keep harmful chemicals away from the cells.
- Environmental toxins, allergy-causing chemicals and foods.
- As much as possible, reduce unnecessary and harmful stresses from the human body, since all stresses, whatever their source, are felt ultimately at the level of the cells.
- Physical and mental stresses.
- As much as possible, control excess weight.
- Being overweight is statistically and medically the best predictor of early death.
These few but very effective techniques allowed these doctor-biochemists to develop healing techniques that raised their "cure" rates (by our count) far higher than those of medical doctors who did not understand or use the newly discovered orthomolecular principles.
Orthomolecular Medical Societies Spring Up All Over The World
From the first few doctor-biochemists in the 1950's, the number grew to hundreds in the 1960's. When they realized how important the orthomolecular information was, they formed Orthomolecular Medical Societies, using the word coined by two-time Nobel Prize Winning Chemist and Humanitarian, Linus Pauling, to describe what they had discovered and to help them spread the information about these new breakthroughs in the biochemistry of health.
As word of the effectiveness of the orthomolecular approach to health care spread, and as healthcare practitioners from various disciplines (chiropractors, dentists, naturopaths, herbalists, acupuncturists for example) began to see how orthomolecular nutritional support enhanced the effectiveness of their own discipline, doctors from other healing traditions began to use orthomolecular principles. Today, although many may not know the origin of their treatment methods, there are hundreds of thousands of health care practitioners from almost all the healing arts using some or all of the orthomolecular techniques of rebalancing cellular chemistry for optimal health.
Orthomolecular Includes Traditional Knowledge
All their discoveries were not new. From their research into reducing stress at the cellular level, they reaffirmed the ancient principles that:
- The best diet was as close to natural as possible. And that the best diet included a wide variety of yellow and green vegetables.
- Unnecessary and uncontrolled stress can be very harmful.
- We need adequate sleep.
- We need adequate time for socializing with our friends and loved ones.
- We need time to care for ourselves.
- And the modern observations we all share - that the by-products of civilization and industry are almost always harmful to the human body (and to the body's cells - resulting in disordered cellular chemistry).
Orthomolecular Medicine Spawns Orthomolecular Nutrition
Dr. Abram Hoffer, founding father of the orthomolecular movement, long ago realized that everyone, sick or well, can benefit dramatically from rebalancing their cellular chemistry closer to optimal and that you don't need to see a doctor to do it.
In his book, Orthomolecular Nutrition, he developed the concept of orthomolecular nutrition for everyone, well or sick (using orthomolecular rebalancing of cellular chemistry).
Orthomolecular has long since passed from the early narrower approach of only treating sick people by using orthomolecular principles. Today it includes everyone. Orthomolecular medicine has spawned orthomolecular nutrition, a tool for greatly improved health and functioning through rebalancing personal body chemistry using orthomolecular principles.
