Empowerplus: The Lure of a Miracle Pill for Mental Illness

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Empowerplus has been banned from Canada, but some users swear it's given them mental wellness without drugs

In September 2001, Caro Overdulve told his parents he wanted to drop his schizophrenia medications and take a vitamin and mineral supplement from an Alberta company called Truehope.

Picture right: Autumn Stringam, center, says she is living a normal life, free of pharmaceuticals, thanks to Truehope. She joined a group of women at Parliament Hill protesting Health Canada's stand against the drug.

The company promised its Empowerplus supplement would bring mental wellness without drugs. Caro was sold. But the decision was the start of a downward spiral, says his mother, Anne Overdulve.

In the two years since, Caro, now 32, has descended into psychosis and been charged with assault, mischief and criminal harassment. He is still in jail and will appear in court today.

On June 6, Health Canada issued a health advisory about Empowerplus, saying users could be putting their health at risk with an unproved drug. Health Canada has blocked Empowerplus, which is manufactured in the U.S., from coming into Canada.

Last week, Health Canada officials and RCMP experts in computer retrieval raided the offices of Truehope Nutritional Support Limited in Raymond, Alta., scooping up computer and paper files and shutting down the call centre.

Phone calls and e-mails poured into the Alberta division of the Canadian Mental Health Association, where executive director Ron Lajeunesse warned that mental patients may kill themselves over the issue -- and he knew of two deaths already.

Picture right: Tony Stephan, left, and David Hardy started Truehope after both were plagued by family histories of mental illness. They began by developing a human version of a feed supplement used to prevent aggression in pigs.

Does Empowerplus Really Help Relieve Schizophrenia Symptoms?

Truehope's co-founder, David Hardy, calls the supplement "the most significant breakthrough in health since time's beginning."

Health Canada calls Empowerplus a "drug." Mr. Hardy calls it "the nutrients." Health Canada says users must be protected. Truehope says it will sue Health Canada for a "discriminatory attack against the mentally ill."

Blocking Empowerplus's entry into Canada has set off a chorus of anger from Truehope customers who claim the supplement has kept them from the brink of suicide and saved them from the psych ward. "Health Canada is trying to make us sound like criminals," said Mr. Hardy.

But others besides Health Canada have concerns. Some fear the promise of a miracle cure is even more dangerous to a vulnerable group of people.

Sheila Deighton, executive director of the Ottawa-Carleton chapter of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, is concerned about schizophrenia patients who drop their medications in favour of Empowerplus.

"They believe that all they need is this vitamin treatment. But once they stop their meds, the bizarre behaviour returns," she said. "It's like a diabetic who is told they don't need insulin."

The Truehope story has all the elements of a dramatic medical breakthrough story: A serendipitous discovery, a miracle cure, a David-and-Goliath battle between two feisty independents who want to help the struggling and an unfeeling government bureaucracy.

The story, which stretches back more than seven years, starts like this: Two men with no medical backgrounds, plagued by tragic family histories of mental illness, try an unorthodox treatment in a bid to prevent more suicides and illness in their families.

One of the pair, Mr. Hardy, had experience in animal nutrition and mentions a feed supplement used to prevent aggressive pigs from savaging each other in their pens to his friend Anthony Stephan.

The two produce a human version of the feed supplement. They give it to the children and it works.

Mr. Stephan's daughter, Autumn Stringam, had bipolar disorder, a mood roller coaster that goes from the highest highs to the deepest depressions.

She said she went from being fat, depressed and in a wheelchair to living a normal life, free of pharmaceuticals.

Then, three years ago, Truehope made headlines again, this time when a University of Calgary researcher released a small study that concluded the supplement had some success in treating people with bipolar disorder.

"For some patients, the supplement has entirely replaced their psychotropic medications and they have remained well," researcher Bonnie Kaplan told the Calgary Herald.