Could schizophrenia be an allergic response ?

In the early 1960's  as a budding cell biologist I was  employed at the U. of Saskatchewan in the Department of Cancer Research. To expand their knowledge of current  research on this campus many of the academic research staff like myself would  attend special evening lectures sponsored by different departments. With my diverse academic training, viz. in cell biology (B.Sc. Hons Biology degree from U. of Manitoba ), in biochemistry (M.Sc. in Biochemistry from U. of Alberta),   plant diseases ( a doctorate from U. of Toronto in cytology and Plant Pathology  ) ,and  medicine (M.D. degree from the U. of Manitoba ) it was not surprising to find me present at many of these special seminars .

I still vividly recall  some of these  seminars especially those given by Dr. A. Hoffer. . In his seminar related to schizophrenia I recall how he demonstrated that  the addition of the protein casein - a normal constituent in milk- to the diet of a known schizophrenic patient could suddenly precipitate a schizophrenic reaction., and when the protein supplement was eliminated , her schizophrenia behaviour was not observed. Years later after  I moved back to Winnipeg, and combined active medical practice with Medical Research in Gerontology, I belonged  to  an organization called CHOM (Consumers Health Organization of Manitoba)- Being one of the  board members  I helped to organize over a period of several years   annual conventions with international speakers. I recall at one of these  conventions where the speaker demonstrated how to precipitate an unusual behaviour with some "schizoid features" in a person by applying sublingually an extract-  To me this behaviour was reminiscent of the precipitation of schizophrenic behaviour with the protein casein. Could the aetiology of schizophrenia be an allergic reaction like asthma attack which can be precipitated by allergens like peanut butter or  shrimp ? I can't be sure that the  extract was strawberry.  I also can't recall the details of the speaker and/or the year of the convention. Unfortunately the CHOM organization is no longer active. However I still may be able to retrieve the particulars as these conventions were audiotapes taped.

The other  seminar I recall was  on skin grafting.  Here Dr. Hoffer discussed the power of hypnosis to overcome the homograft rejection reaction. Under hypnosis his patient was  instructed that the skin graft she was about to receive was part of her own body and would not be rejected . Normally within a couple of weeks following such skin grafting  the homograft reaction would result in the rejection of the donor tissue immunologically.  He eliminated  the argument that the host just replaced the donor skin graft by selecting a donor of the opposite sex (male in this experiment ) and then checking the sex of the graft with  the sex chromatin and/or Barr body  test.   (I hope to  discuss this phenomenon more fully in  a subsequent blog)