Posted by Larry Hoover on October 22, 2003, at 15:03:59
In reply to Dealing With Depression Naturally , posted by Ron Jones on October 22, 2003, at 13:23:54
> This is a book by Syd Baumell.It has lots of info on everything natural treatments.It has the study on magnesium done by DR. Guy Chouinard at mc gill U. in canada not long ago .He said it is better than lithium.Maybe it does correct the inositol monophoshate enzyme.Magnesium is the co enzyme for this enzyme.The enzyme is hyperactive and recycles Ip3 too fast.Ip3 is turned into IP4.Ip4 may be needed to restore calcium homeostasis.There is little research on IP4.
Here's the abstract. Comments below.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 1990;14(2):171-80.
A pilot study of magnesium aspartate hydrochloride (Magnesiocard) as a mood stabilizer for rapid cycling bipolar affective disorder patients.
Chouinard G, Beauclair L, Geiser R, Etienne P.
Research Centre, Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital, University of Montreal, Canada.
1. Nine severe rapid cycling manic-depressive patients were treated with a magnesium preparation, Magnesiocard 40 mEq/day in an open label study for a period up to 32 weeks. 2. Magnesiocard was found to have clinical results at least equivalent to those of lithium in about 50% of these patients. These results were obtained in an exploratory study and should be interpreted with caution. 3. The possibility that Magnesiocard could replace or improve the efficacy of lithium as a preventive treatment of manic-depressive illness merits further clinical investigation.
Factors that make this study nothing more than a curiosity generator:
1. there were only nine subjects.
2. it was open-label (meaning not blind, with respect to treatment).
3. there is no report with respect to how the comparison with lithium treatment was made (did they guess?).
4. the subjects were rapid-cyclers, possibly a very distinct type of bipolar, with its own treatment requirements/responsiveness.
5. they did not find that magnesium was better, but that it was "at least equivalent to...lithium in about 50% of these patients".
6. the authors themselves (quite reasonably) suggest that the results "should be interpreted with caution".I have checked the literature, and no follow-up study was conducted.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:271917
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20031003/msgs/271952.html