Parent Category: Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine is a form of complementary and alternative medicine with the goal to preventing and treating disease with nutrients, often in the form of dietary supplements.^[1][2] The term "orthomolecular" was first coined in a 1967 letter^[3] by Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling and later elaborated on in a 1968 paper^[4] on micronutrients and psychiatry to express the idea of "the right molecules in the right amounts" (ortho is Greek for right^[5]). In this paper, Pauling indicated that the right molecules are "substances that are normally present in the human body". Orthomolecular medicine began with a particular focus upon mental illness, and orthomolecular psychiatry remains a major subdiscipline.^[6] Proponents state that orthomolecular treatments are based on patients' personal biochemistries^[7] and employ naturally-occurring or bioequivalent biomolecules, particularly nutrients such as vitamins, dietary minerals, proteins, antioxidants,^[8] amino acids, lipotropes,^[9] prohormones, dietary fiber, fatty acids and other similar substances.^[10]