Bipolar Today

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In a battle over effectiveness between names that don’t use spaces, PsychCentral has published an interesting editorial criticizing EMPowerPlus, a vitamin treatment put out by TrueHope. The criticism has two forks. First, it criticizes TrueHope for its characterization of the causes of bipolar disorder, saying that bipolar disorder is not the result of a chemical imbalance. Second, it criticizes TrueHope’s research for being weak. PsychCentral does admit that there is a good study showing that EMPowerPlus is safe, though not effective.

Commentary

Since I, as someone with bipolar disorder, am stuck in the middle of this debate, I have a vested interest in its outcome. If EMPowerPlus helps with bipolar disorder, I should consider taking it (I currently do not). If it doesn’t, then I don’t want to waste any money. Unfortunately, it is hard to use this article as anything other than what a detective might call a “lead”. It doesn’t really show anything definitively, since it never appropriately gathers up its evidence.

Let’s look at each fork of the criticism. PsychCentral criticizes TrueHope for characterizing bipolar disorder as being the result of chemicals not being “in balance”. They even put it in quotes, just like that, as though that is what TrueHope has claimed. However, TrueHope never makes the claim that a chemical balance is the problem, even in the passage that is quoted. What they do seem to claim is that it is a deficiency, which is, I admit, problematic. However, it’s strange to see TrueHope criticized for something that the didn’t say.

Second, let’s look at the criticism of the research. First, it doesn’t actually provide any links to the research in question. It was easy enough to find, because it mentions research on TrueHope’s website, but without actually discussing the research directly, it’s really just asking us to take its word. However, research is precisely what is supposed to allow us to stop just taking people’s word for things. Second, it plays with the idea of “good research” to dismiss research that is simply less conclusive. Several of the studies are published in peer-reviewed journals, which don’t generally publish “bad research”. If the methodologies are inconclusive (and I would agree that they are), then they should be considered “preliminary research”, which is generally “good research”.

The criticisms in PsychCentral provide some reasons to suspect EMPowerPlus may not work. The mechanism described is wonky and the research is inconclusive. However, the article making the criticisms is itself rhetorically laden, and can at best serve as a lead for further investigation.

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