Lifestyle Choices

GLA

The amount of GLA required to have this effect is quite high. I recommend 200-300mg GLA per day, reducing to 150mg after three months if inflammation reduces and symptoms stay stable. Only 9-10 per cent of the oil in evening primrose oil is GLA so that means you need to take 3000mg of evening primrose oil, or six 500mg capsules per day. Borage oil contains a higher proportion of GLA and you can get single capsules which provide 250mg of GLA. One of these a day is an essential part of an anti-inflammatory strategy. Supplementing GLA has been shown to be more effective when the co-factor vitamins and minerals (vitamin B6, zinc, B3 and vitamin C) are also supplied. (more…)

Most people will need advice from their doctor to help in the treatment of moderate or severe acne. Generally doctors will start with cheap, safe agents which have few side effects and only if these fail will they recommend medication to be taken by mouth.

Topical preparations (onto the skin)

Benzoyl peroxide

This has been around for more than thirty years but we do not yet know fully how it works. It loosens blackheads and kills bacteria but has other effects as well. It comes in strengths from two-and-a-half to twenty per cent and may be bought as a cream, gel or a wash. Examples are given in the previous section. (more…)

Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is like banging a TV set when it does not work. However, the crudity of whamming a 100-volt electric shock through someone’s brain does not take away the fact that this technique has saved people’s lives when all else has failed. As with every new and seemingly successful physical treatment of mental ailments, such as tranquillizers and anti-depressants, ECT has a history of gross overuse. It has also been misused in some institutions as a form of control or punishment.

ECT produces a temporary epilepsy. It was started on the theory (later found to be untrue) that epilepsy and schizophrenia never co-exist. It was therefore used to treat schizophrenia but with no success beyond a significant placebo effect. However, the technique was also used on people in severe depressive states with incredible results. In a few weeks people who were expected to remain in hospital for months or even years were recovering from the blackest and whitest of depressions. (more…)