This basic theory is simple, easy to understand, and it makes good sense .  Simply put, three things must all be present for any symptom/disease to also be present.  These are:

1. NUTRITIONALLY DEFICIENT OR TOXIC.  (Our modern diet leaves all of us somewhat nutritionally deficient, and many are toxic due to environmental pollution).

2. STRESS. (In our world, who doesn't have stress.  The caveman only had a few real emotional stresses.  We face saber-toothed tigers every day.)

3. PREDISPOSITION.  (What is your family history, and what has your brain learned as you've gone thru life?)

This theory made sense to me the first time I heard of it.  If the body chemistry isn't correct, the immune system can't work right.  If there is stress present, then the body needs more good nutrition to handle it.  (A downward spiral in effect - stress causing more deficiency, and more deficiency causing more symptoms/illness causing even more stress.)

The orthomolecular approach is to put into the body natural substances which the body lacks for normal (excellent) immune system operation.  This would include insulin for diabetic patients, and similar chemicals or nutrients which, for one reason or another, either aren't available or not available in sufficient quantity to the individual patient.

We tend to forget that WE ARE WHAT WE EAT.  This is a truism, and it's a fact that if your diet is deficient in any "necessary" ingredients, something doesn't work exactly as designed in your body.  It takes a long time to "feel" this in most cases because our bodies are well designed and have redundant systems of sorts, but over time, our health gets worse and worse.  Our "modern" diets are deficient in nutrition.  Fast foods aren't necessarily good foods!

Predisposition means your genetic makeup and your "learned" responses to any events.  If your parents and/or grandparents were susceptible to heart or cancer problems, you are at somewhat more risk with those diseases.  The same for depression, schizophrenia, and other mental diseases. The direct inheritance of allergies is not common, but the tendency towards all allergies and sensitivities is.  All of the above is also dependent on nutrition in the womb to an extent unsuspected by most.

Learned responses.  This is a somewhat difficult subject to understand from a layman's standpoint.  It concerns unconscious or subconscious learning taking place in the brain.  It may not be logical to our conscious mind, but it is very logical to a computer type mind.

For example, I once had a bedwetting case.  Using my then standard behavior therapy, I hypnotized the 10 year old boy.  Using hypnotic age regression, he told me that at about six years old, he was sleeping, and was awakened by hearing someone trying to "break in".  He was so frightened, he urinated.  The person trying to get in (or the noise he heard) quit about then.  The logic of the unconscious mind - urinating in the night keeps burglars and other bogey men away!.  This is a learned response, and logical to our unconscious mind.

All humans have such.  We don't fully understand them as they are individual to each person.  It's somewhat analgous to the old argument - Is it genetic or learned? and answers aren't simple.  Sometimes one and sometimes the other.  It should be noted here that many, if not most, or even all, such learned response symptoms will also respond to behavior or hypnotic therapy.  I've "cured" hundreds of allergic symptoms, particularly in children.  The symptom went away, but the particular allergy does not, and may even become attached to another symptom later in life.

One further insight into the orthomolecular approach to therapy.  The basic physician dictum (not too well honored today by all MD's) says "DO NO HARM". Drugs all have harmful side-effects, and thousands of persons die every year from taking the exact drugs that their MD prescribed.  Orthomolecular medicine tries to "cure" the underlying chemical problem, and thus wean the patient off dangerous drugs.  Many MD's call orthomolecular practicioners "quacks", just as doctors who didn't bleed their wounded patients were called in the 1800's.

Drugs can be marvelous indeed, but all have side-effects, and the goal should always be to find the cause of the symptom, NOT to just alleviate that symptom.

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