21 Facts About Abram Hoffer

Abram Hoffer was a Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist known for his "adrenochrome hypothesis" of schizoaffective disorders.

Abram Hoffer was involved in studies of LSD as an experimental therapy for alcoholism and the discovery that high-dose niacin can be used to treat high cholesterol and other dyslipidemias.

Abram Hoffer was born in the small Jewish settlement of Sonnenfeld in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1917, the last of four children and the son of Israel Abram Hoffer.

Originally interested in agriculture, Abram Hoffer earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in agricultural chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

Abram Hoffer then took up a scholarship for a year of post-graduate work with the University of Minnesota, followed by work developing assays for niacin levels at a wheat products laboratory in Winnipeg.

Abram Hoffer earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1944, part of which involved the study of vitamins and with an interest in nutrition went on to study medicine at the University of Manitoba in 1945.

Abram Hoffer married Rose Miller in 1942, and his son Bill Hoffer was born in 1944 followed by two more children, John and Miriam, in 1947 and 1949.

Abram Hoffer was hired by the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health in 1950 to establish a provincial research program in psychiatry, and joined the Regina Psychiatric Services Branch, Department of Public Health in 1951.

Abram Hoffer remained the Director of Psychiatric Research until entering private practice in 1967.

Abram Hoffer thought niacin could be used as a methyl acceptor to prevent the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline and that Vitamin C could be used to prevent the oxidation of Adrenaline to Adrenochrome.

In 1967, Abram Hoffer resigned some of his academic and administrative positions, entered into private psychiatric practice in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and created the Journal of Schizophrenia.

Abram Hoffer used the journal to publish articles on what he called "nutritional psychiatry", later orthomolecular psychiatry, claiming his ideas were consistently rejected by mainstream journals because they were unacceptable to the medical establishment.

In 1976, Abram Hoffer relocated to Victoria, British Columbia and continued with his private psychiatric practice until his retirement in 2005.

In 1994, Abram Hoffer founded the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, holding its inaugural in Vancouver in April of the same year.

Abram Hoffer continued to provide nutritional consultations and served as editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.

Abram Hoffer was President of the Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre in Victoria, BC.

Abram Hoffer died at the age of 91 on May 27,2009, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Abram Hoffer's remains were buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Victoria.

Canadian scientists reported a fifty percent success rate in one study, although Abram Hoffer speculated that it was more likely the psychedelic experience of LSD, rather than simulated delirium tremens, that convinced the alcoholics to stop drinking.

Abram Hoffer continued to promote niacin as a treatment for schizophrenia, though this approach was not accepted by mainstream medicine.

Abram Hoffer's claims regarding schizophrenia and his theories of holistic orthomolecular medicine have been criticized by the mainstream of psychiatry.