Abram Hoffer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Abram Hoffer
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| Born | November 11, 1917 Sonnenfeld, Saskatchewan, Canada
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| Died | May 27, 2009 (aged 91) Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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| Education | University of Saskatchewan University of Minnesota University of Toronto |
| Known for | Promotion of orthomolecular therapy as a treatment for schizophrenia |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Schizophrenia, Nutrition |
| Institutions | Saskatchewan Department of Public Health University of Saskatchewan |
Abram Hoffer (November 11, 1917 – May 27, 2009) was a Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist known for his "adrenochrome hypothesis" of schizoaffective disorders. According to Hoffer, megavitamin therapy and other nutritional interventions are potentially effective treatments for cancer and schizophrenia. Hoffer was also involved in the discovery that high-dose niacin can be used to treat high cholesterol and other dyslipidemias. Hoffer's ideas about megavitamin therapy to treat mental illness are not accepted by the medical community.
Biography
Hoffer was born in the small Jewish settlement of Sonnenfeld in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1917, the last of four children and the son of Israel Hoffer. Originally interested in agriculture, Hoffer earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in agricultural chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He then took up a scholarship for a year of post-graduate work with the University of Minnesota, followed by work developing assays for niacin levels at a wheat products laboratory in Winnipeg. Hoffer earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1944, part of which involved the study of vitamins (particularly B vitamins and their effect on the body) and with an interest in nutrition went on to study medicine at the University of Manitoba in 1945. After two years of clinical work at the University of Toronto, Hoffer earned his MD in 1949. Though originally intending to be a general practitioner, during his studies Hoffer developed an interest in psychiatry. He married Rose Miller in 1942, and his son Bill Hoffer was born in 1944 followed by two more children, John and Miriam, in 1947 and 1949.
Hoffer was hired by the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health in 1950 to establish a provincial research program in psychiatry, and joined the Regina Psychiatric Services Branch, Department of Public Health in 1951. He remained the Director of Psychiatric Research until entering private practice in 1967. Critical of psychiatry for its emphasis on psychosomatic psychoanalysis and for what he considered a lack of adequate definition and measurement, Hoffer felt that biochemistry and human physiology may be used instead. He hypothesised that people with schizophrenia may lack the ability to remove the catecholamine metabolite adrenochrome from their brains. Hoffer thought niacin could be used as a methyl acceptor to prevent the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline and that Vitamin C could be used to prevent the oxidation of Adrenaline to Adrenochrome. Hoffer called his theory the "adrenochrome hypothesis".
In 1967, Hoffer resigned some of his academic and administrative positions, entered into private psychiatric practice in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and created the Journal of Schizophrenia (renamed the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 1986). Hoffer used the journal to publish articles on what he called "nutritional psychiatry", later orthomolecular psychiatry, claiming his ideas were consistently rejected by mainstream journals because they were unacceptable to the medical establishment. In 1976, Hoffer relocated to Victoria, British Columbia and continued with his private psychiatric practice until his retirement in 2005. In 1994, Hoffer founded the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, holding its inaugural in Vancouver in April of the same year. Hoffer continued to provide nutritional consultations and served as editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. He was also President of the Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre in Victoria, BC.
Hoffer died at the age of 91 on May 27, 2009, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. His remains were buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Victoria.
Research
While working at the Regina General Hospital in the 1950s, Hoffer and James Stephen examined the effects of large doses of niacin on various diseases, including schizophrenia; Hoffer theorized that adrenalin, when oxidized to adrenochrome was an endogenous neurotoxin that could cause schizophrenia. At the same time, another Canadian working in Saskatoon, pathologist Rudolf Altschul, was exploring the use of high doses of niacin to lower cholesterol in rabbits and patients with degenerative vascular disease. The three combined their work, and in 1955 produced a paper entitled "Influence of nicotinic acid on serum cholesterol in man." The paper summarized their research showing high-dose niacin significantly lowered cholesterol in both high cholesterol patients as well as low cholesterol control subjects. The results were replicated by researchers at the Mayo Clinic and in Germany the following year. High-dose niacin has since become a treatment option for individuals with high blood cholesterol and related blood lipid abnormalities.
At such high doses niacin may have side effects of intense flushing of the face and torso and, rarely, liver toxicity. Hoffer continued to promote niacin as a treatment for schizophrenia, though this approach was not accepted by mainstream medicine. Subsequent research suggested that Hoffer's adrenochrome theory had merit as people with schizophrenia have defects in the genes that produce glutathione S-transferase, which eliminates the byproducts of catecholamines from the brain. Though Hoffer and Osmond reported nicotinic acid could help with the treatment of schizophrenia, others reported that they could not replicate these results. Despite the apparent face validity of Hoffer's "transmethylation hypothesis", it was ultimately rejected for two reasons: the alleged neurotoxins were never identified and the cause of schizophrenia became attributed to dysfunctions in neurotransmitters.
