My adult son insists nothing is wrong with him. He has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is now taking medication. He is doing better but wants to discontinue the medicine. This has happened before, he stopped and quickly went into a decline. I have been reading about the vitamin sarcosine and wondered if this might be an alternative. I have mentioned this to his therapist who did not know anything about it but promised to check into it.
There is no supplement that can replace a medication - so if thats your comparison point, I would say definitely no.
Also - sarcosine and the other supplements are generally just helpful for the negative symptoms of sz (suggests the research) - not the positive symptoms (delusions, etc.) - that are the ones that the medications target. More info on our Complementary (not “alternative”) treatments page: Vitamins and Complementary and Natural Treatments - Schizophrenia.com
Here (below) is a survey that someone did on sarcosine in the diagnosed forum - to find out if it was helpful for people. So far about 40 people have answered and about 60% of the people say its helpful.
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Hi there,
I imported sarcosine from Belgium because it was difficult to find a distributor in the US. I gave it to my son and I do believe it helped. I noticed a difference - in his negative symptoms - not the positive symptoms as mentioned. He seemed to smile more. All of a sudden, my son decided he wouldn’t take his supplements. I also had him on fish oil and a multi-vitamin as well as his sarcosine. I let it go although sometimes I do slip it into a smoothie or something (I realize this is not the best policy). Between the battle to take his medication v. the supplements, the battle of the supplements lost, so I just wait to see if he will take it up again. But, to answer your question, yes, I do believe that it did help. It does not help if the medication being taken is clozapine though - I read a lot of european studies on this. Hope this helps.