Welcome to this site which started off dealing with omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil only. It has gradually expanded  to include details on  nutritional or biochemical treatment of a whole range of conditions with a strong emphasis on psychiatric illness. This is sometimes referred to as nutrient therapy. My experience now is that the majority of patients with mental health problems can be helped by getting the chemistry (biochemistry) of the brain as close to the normal range as possible. Most of my mental health patients have seen a psychiatrist,sometimes,many psychiatrists, before they see me yet I can help the majority. There is no way that if my cardiac patients had seen a cardiologist that I could improve even one of them.

 Since 2009 I have been spreading the message about natural nutrients and have made over 20  Rapid Response contributions  to the electronic version of the British Medical Journal (bmj.com). However that section is not covered in their search  system in 2012.

I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE ALL THAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM DR WILLIAM WALSH PhD WHO HAS INSPIRED MUCH OF MY STUDIES INTO NUTRITION IN MENTAL HEALTH. HE DID MOST OF HIS RESEARCH  WORK AT THE PFEIFFER CENTER IN CHICAGO (www.hriptc.org)  . HE VISITED IRELAND TO GIVE A FULL DAY`S COURSE. THE MEETING TOOK  PLACE AT TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN IN JULY 2010 WITH 200 PEOPLE IN ATTENDANCE,INCLUDING 20 DOCTORS but alas not even one psychiatrist. SEE DETAILS INCLUDING THE SLIDES OF THE LECTURES at www.walshresearchinstitute.org.   You can get more information on Dr Walsh at www.labtestingone.com where you can read  his views on nutrients as well as a commentary on Pyroluria. DR Walsh`s book NUTRIENT POWER is due out in March 2012.

If you want up to date information on vitamins and other micronutients have a look at http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/meetings.html  . That is the department in in Oregon State University in USA called after Dr  Linus Pauling, a biochemist who won two Nobel Prizes.

Another very useful source of knowledge is a book  which you can download  from  www.flyingpublisher.com/pdf/FPG_008ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicineTreatmentsinPsychiatry_2012.pdf   

That is a splendid little book with an enormous amount of useful information. Congratulations to the authors who very generously have allowed it to be downloaded free of charge. You will be able to get it  shortly too from Amazon.com                             

 The information on this website  is being provided for the benefit  of the  patients of Dr Edmond O`Flaherty, a family doctor (G.P.) in Dublin,Ireland. I usually see patients with a mental health problem on a regular basis over a long period so anybody coming here should be aware of this fact. However some patients come from far away and indeed from other countries  and I try to follow them up over the telephone or by email.Those who suffer from depression are the likeliest ones to benefit from coming here.   When  I attended  a course in nutrition in mental health in Sydney  the speaker,Dr William Walsh PhD, mentioned that this work can be relevant to eating disorders too and if used in assocation with  psychoterapy and  medication (usually SSRIs) can significantly improve the prognosis. In the past I felt that I could do nothing about anorexia nervosa but now I am happy to see patients with this condition as a lot can be done and often a worthwhile improvement  in the physical and mental health can start to occur in less than 3 months.Many people with schizophrenia or bipolar a get a useful improvement too too but only about 15% of those with severe OCD find it worthwhile to come so I advise patients with that condition not to come. I cannot increase the IQ of a patient with Downs Syndrome so they would be wasting their time coming here.

I recommend nutrients for my patients  and they  cost about 3-5 euros per day mostly from health food shops. Sometimes I get these made up in Pfeiffer Center in Chicago as they put them into a smaller number of capsules and there is better compliance.This option is no longer available to Irish residents  as the Irish Medicines Board blocks medication from outside the EU and I no longer take on autistic cases as I cannnot help them as they need special nutrients from the US.

This website is for general knowledge only and not specifically for any individual. Because it is  on the net  it is being viewed by hundreds of people every month. Feedback from different parts of the world suggests that many lives have been utterly transformed by these few pages. If you have any suggestions to improve it or any comments or  if you notice any error please contact eoflaherty@gmail.com .You may also contribute your opinion to my blog at www.biochemicalindividualitypsychiatry.blogspot.com 

I provide testing for a whole range of psychiatric problems,especially depression but also many other psychiatric conditions. Results are best for depression in young people and many of those are able to get off antidepressants and as far as I can see stay off them successfully if they take the nutients as advised. Pure OCD patients are the most difficult to treat and I do not recommend anybody to come here for treating this as only 15% get a  good respose. However where OCD is just one of their psychiatric problems the outlook is actually better. Some with ADD and ADHD come too. These tests are sent to  labs in Ireland,U.K and occasionally the U.S., and then if something abnormal is found I try to correct it. I do not send exactly the same tests for everybody-it depends on the history and physical examination.This treatment is sometimes referred to as biochemical individuality. Blood,urine and occasionally hair samples are taken and about 80% of patients turn up at least one abnormality. I can only help them if the test results show an abnormality so some people will gain nothing from coming here. About 80% of those with depression, 50% of those with schizophrenia or bipolar and 15% of those with OCD get significantly better over the following few months. What I recommend is the addition  of selected vitamins,minerals,amino acids (from the breakdown of protein in the gut) and essential fatty acids (including fish oil) to their regular medication,not as a replacement. I have recently devoted much of my time to  this work so the former 4 week waiting list has almost disappeared and is typically about one week now. Telephone+353 12881425 for appointment or use the email above. It takes about three weeks for all the results to come back and then I advise the patient of the nutrients required. I also advise continuing the medication as a rule and do not reduce the medication level of anybody with a history of psychosis. Among the fascinating points of this work is that about 20% of cases (excluding OCD)  are actually easy to solve and I am concerned that  this knowledge is not widely known. 

Autism can be treated fairly well now now but it is very specialised and  I  believed they should initiallly be seen at Pfeiffer Center in Chicago (www.hriptc.org)but note that the  service is no longer available for young children. As mentioned above I avoid treating them as a rule but I can do a little for them, but not as much as I was able to in the past.  The cost of the visiting me  for any  nutrient therapy patient  and getting all the tests done is expensive - 350 euros -and quite a lot more if they come from outside Ireland-typically €400-500.                                      I did a course in nutrition in mental health  in Sydney in Feb 2006 organised for doctors  by Pfeiffer Center  where I was introduced to autism as a chemical/biochemical problem. Autism is fairly treatable now if the brain chemistry is sorted out in the first three or 4 years and children can then enter normal primary school. Even older ones can achieve some benefit too but not to the same extent as the brain gets damaged in due course if not treated. Successful treatment involves taking special nutriens for a lifetime.These children have a severe  zinc deficiency as a rule for example and zinc is a very important feature of normal brain function and also  for normal bowel function. They usually have a whole range of other problems too,often related to the gut. Did you know that when 3-4 year-old autistic children recover they are found to have an average IQ of 120? Best results are achieved by combining biochemical treatment with such therapy as ABA.

I have  started to treat Alzheimer`s Disease using antioxidants and as well as metallotionein promotion therapy from Pfeiffer Center, Chicago. This treatment is taken in addition to regular medication,which,to be frank,is not too impressive . Treatment  by Pfeiffer Center in Chicago of a small number of patients  has shown improved scores on the Mini-Mental Test  and computerised CANTAB testing and these results have been stabilised for up to 5 years,a remarkable story. Using their protocol and products I now offer this treatment too. Please note that although early results are promising this treatment must  be regared as "unproven" until double-blind,controlled studies can be successfully completed and published. Because this product  is not made by a big drug company that may take a very long time. This treatment works best if started at the first sign of the condition appearing and regular medication is continued too.

Omega-3 fish oil (or fatty acids) has been shown to have considerable beneficial effects in many controlled trials and in clinical practice.

In this website you will find some details of where it has been found useful and it also provides links  to a great deal of information on other sites.

No responsibility can be accepted for any use to which you put this information.Please get the opinion of your physician in the first place and DO NOT STOP YOUR NORMAL MEDICATION WITHOUT YOUR PHYSICIAN`S APPROVAL.The nutrients I recommend for psychiatric conditions- mostly vitamins,minerals,essential fatty acids and amino acids-are taken in addition to and not instead of standard psychiatric medication-it is complementary rather than alternative medicine.As the patients get well though they often get drowsy and then the psychiatrists  reduce the level of their antipsychotic medication if they have been on that.

Note that omega-3 fish oil is unsuitable for those with a fish allergy -they should use flaxseed oil instead. It is  unsuitable  too for haemophiliacs and probably  for certain other types of blood disorders or if taking any medication to thin your blood or prevent it from clotting.It may be unsuitable too in large doses for some of  those with a pyroluric disorder-this affects  27% of people with schizophrenia ( and a lot of bipolar patients too,especially rapid cycling bipolars) and some of these appear to be deficient in omega-6 instead (in particular gamma linolenic acid)  as well as B6 and zinc.I have described this condition in detail in the WHERE IS OMEGA-3 USEFUL page as most of these can make a good recovery if treated properly.Please read about it as you may spot this condition  in a person with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or simply depression and help them on the path to recovery by referring them on. I am really surprised at how  the same nutritional treatment can improve these 3 widely different conditions in so many cases. I  like to turn up pyroluria in the kryptopyrrole test  as the outlook is generally very good for those patients-their lives can be greatly improved in as little as a few weeks in many cases.Those with a low histamine test generally improve after a few months  while those with a high histamine level tend to have very low serotonin,very severe depression and many months pass before  they recover,if at all. If they are treated while young though the outlook even for this group is generally quite alright,although they may not always be able to return to the same high level position which they had in the past. My own belief is that it a great tragedy that the type of information provided on this site is not known by most doctors and that so many people  who could have a good quality of  life are living in misery instead.

Nutritional psychiatry makes up only 25% of my work but it is by far the most useful and satisfying work that I do. Almost every month I see patients who have been out of work,sometimes for years, returning to work or college and the benefits to those patients,their families and indeed society are enormous.Most of the patients I see,and they come to me from very far away sometimes, have been attending psychiatrists for years and I am quite shocked at how much extra benefit is is possibe to obtain for them by doing  tests and recommending specific nutrients.The biggest problem I have is that sometimes I recommend a long list and unless a mother or somebody who is as concerned as a mother is there to make sure they take them then my work will be in vain. As they get better though they will generally take them themselves.I cannot cure anybody of mental illness though so if they are well and stop taking the nutrients they will relapse,usually in a few weeks.However after the first few months of treatment they will generally get by on a much smaller dose than they need in the beginning.

If somebody has a history of psychotic illness for more than ten years my experience with nutrients  suggests that the prognosis is less effective and in those over 50 the results are generally poor.The oldest patient with chronic schizophrenia I have seen getting a job is now 58 and I started treating him only  five years ago.He still remains on his antipsychotics although the dose has been reduced.Recently he told me he felt great and said he felt dire before I treated him.

Nutritional or orthomolecular psychiatry is used by only 1% of psychiatrists  in North America.Gradually however medical schools there are opening faculties of complementary  medicine and I expect that this type of treatment will become more  widely accepted over the next few years

I found a website recently that may help some of the people who come to this one. It is www.comprehensivepsychiatricresources.com .It features an American psychiatrist, Dr James Greenblast MD who specialises in integrative treatment.

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                          LOW DOSE NALTREXONE- LDN - A REALLY USEFUL LARGELY UNKNOWN DRUG

This has nothing to do with omega-3 or nutrition but I have for over 5 years  been using a a drug called naltrexone in small doses (low dose naltrexone) and have found it to be extremely useful in some cases of cancers,auto immune diseases, MS,Chronic fatigue/M.E.,poorly-functioning immune systems,psoriasis,fibromyalgia and Crohn`s Disease to name only some indications. I have got considerable experience in its use and have prescribed it for several hundred patients. I have now added a LOWDOSENALTREXONE page to this site which you can visit by clicking on bottom entry on the left side of this page. It costs 55 euros to see me and  a prescription for 6 months is issued if I think it might work. One of the local pharamacies keeps  it in stock but note that an Irish prescription is valid in all countries of the European Union and the tablets can be got in a day or two  by any helpful pharmacist. I am one of the few doctors in Ireland who prescribes it but the knowledge of its value in numerous conditions is slowly spreading around the world. Conferences have been  held about it in America and elewhere in recent years.