Q:  Meat Based Infant Formula & BP

  
Both my daughter(now 23) and my nephew (now 21) were put on a meat-based formula soon after birth.  Both have had mental/emotional problems since primary grades, if not before.  Aside from the obvious genetic connection, do you have any thoughts about the possibility that the infant formula accelerated their fall into bipolar disorder?  They are the first family members with this problem who cannot function well enough to hold a job.  No one in our family has ever had to apply for a mental disability before.  

I have signed up for the bipolar parents group, and I will pose my question to them whenever I am accepted into the group.

Carol

Dear Carol -- 
Haven't heard of that nor can I think of a known mechanism by which that would cause a problem.  However, sometimes a question like yours is where a new discovery starts (one of my patients is slowly making headway convincing me there's something to her theory about seismic and solar events affecting people with bipolar disorder).  There is a phenomenon where an illness that runs in a family seems to get a little worse in each generation.  It's called "genetic anticipation" and was recognized in Huntington's disease, and has been suggested as a likely phenomenon in bipolar disorder, at least in some families.  

Dr. Phelps

Published November, 2001