Crime and Nutrition

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Tjarko Holtjer, a friend in the Netherlands who runs a well fed multilingual website about health freedom, nutrition issues and more, has sent an article which I would like to pass on.

Criminal behaviour and violence depend very much on nutrition. Some vitamins or essential minerals - if out of balance - can make the difference between a sane fellow and a violent criminal.

Same thing at school - nutrition and ability to learn are closely related. The kid getting hooked on Ritalin as a "treatment" for ADHD might just be out of vital nutrients from having too much sugar and sweets to eat. Refined sugar - the white kind - is a strong robber of nutrients and might leave kids stranded in more ways than one. Teeth and learning ability both go to hell, not to talk about attention.

And then there's fish. Some of us remember cod liver oil as a source of nutrition, together with molasses, the stuff that's left over when sugar gets refined. Cod liver oil is full of omega 3 fatty acids and black strap molasses contain all the plant based minerals that have been processed by the sugar cane. We are really thorough in removing any trace of these vital minerals from the final product we put in our tea or coffee.

No wonder then, that things seem to get more and more difficult.

Food for your mind

Compiled by: Tjarko Holtjer
(Original is here)

Prisoners change their fried potatoes for food with a lot of vitamins and change within ten months into kind boys. Fat fish keeps you away from depression and senility.

"You are mad." Criminologist Stephen J. Schoenthaler heard that said to him when he wanted to investigate whether the behaviour of prisoners would change if their menu would be adapted. Schoenthaler was fascinated by three statistical curves: The number of cases of gratuitous violence, the sales of the fast food industry and sugar consumption. All three were mountain-high upwards. The 'feeling in his stomach' and his mother-in-law told him there could be a connection between those three.

Despite criticism from Colleagues - he went ahead. He found a loyal director of a large jail in Virginia. Within some weeks they put together an elaborate survey. At first the prisoners would eat white bread, hamburgers, sausages, fried potatoes, iceberg lettuce, cookies, milk shakes, sweet snacks and soft drinks. After that the prisoners would be given a diet with whole-meal bread, patatoes, meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, without fried snacks and sugar. After that there would be a period of six months of traditional prison-meals.

The results were astonishing. In the patatoes-vegetables-meat phase their anti-social behaviour dropped, and after re-introduction of hot dogs and cookies returned fully. The news was spread and Schoenthaler became a well-known guest at prisons. In ten years he put 8076 delinquents onto food experiments. The stopping of sugar as well as the jacking up of vitamins and minerals led to a decrease of the number of contraventions, physical and verbal violence, escape and suicide attempts and towards a better mood. Old offenders did 86% less tricks, drug addicts 72%. Some prisons decided to go on, the way Schoenthaler had started them out. But afterwards most of them returned to Coca-Cola and McDonalds food again.

Schoenthaler kept curious about his subject. He asked himself whether recalcitrant school kids could be influenced with food. To get more clarity he started a study of 6 - 12 year old pupils of a school in Phoenix, Arizona - in 1999. This school registered the behaviour of the children every day. Because the children did not eat at school but with their parents, he started to work with food supplements. During four months the children got a vitamin pill or a placebo. The effect of the vitamins - only half the daily recommended dosage - was enormous. The amount of disciplinary measures against 40 mischief makers, with vitamin pill, was lowered by almost 50%. The children behaved less aggressive, less destructive, had more respect for their teachers, became more cooperative and could concentrate better. As a side effect, their achievements improved. The IQ of the children getting the food supplements was slightly increased (also true for the quiet children.)

"It is bad to think that incomplete food will only have effects on our physical functioning," says doctor Melvin Werbach, who did many studies on the relationship between food and behaviour. "The brain is also an organ - just like for example the kidneys, the eyes and the heart, it is sensitive to a shortage of food substances. With brain scans a relationship was found between the amount of magnesium in the blood and the functioning of that part of the brain where morals, conscience and impulse control are located. Schoenthaler and his colleagues showed us that bringing those substances to a certain level in the blood can lead to improvement of behaviour."

Most doctors think that it is impossible to get too little vitamins and minerals into your body in our Western world, even with its wrong food habits. But the consumption of vegetables and fruit is still diwntrending. Fried patatoes, hamburgers, milkshakes, chips and cola are in place of traditional food. Welbach: "A clearly visible consequence from that derailment is that we grow fatter and fatter and we suffer from diabetes and osteoporosis at 30. Another disaster is happening between our ears. We become depressed, agressive or get ADHD. Most of the children in Schoenthalers experiment were eating normal. Also without daily vitamin pill. What did the Dutch eat just after the war? Kale with sausage? Sprouts? Beef? Perfect! Give today's youth regularly and life will be a lot more convenient!"

How unbalanced food is leading to biochemical disturbances in the brain and how we can correct these disturbances with vitamins and minerals, is partly clear. Anyone who searches dusty archives of medical libraries will find in a century of documentation tens of connections and theories, but hardly explainations. Anti social behavior has something to do with too much sugar, white flour and shortage of vitamin B11 (folic acid), vitamin B1 (thiamin) and minerals like iron, selenium and magnesium. The same is true for depression, panic-problems and hyperactivity. A lot more is not known in those libraries.

More clear is the role of the omega-3 fatty acids. They play a role in the functioning of the brain. They are in green vegetables, but mostly found in fat fish. Countless studies have proved, among them a research carried out in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, suggests that a herring helps to avoid that we get depressed and senile. The fatty acids play an important role within the signal transmission in the brains. With a shortage anything can happen in our white/grey telecommunications center. "The minimal amount of omega-3 fatty acids in our Western menu leads to a problem with the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamin," says neuropsychiatrist Emanual Severus from the University of Berlin. And the Swedish pathologist Tom Saldeen: "In the Northern European countries the intake of Omega-3 fatty acids has dropped in the last 80 years by 80%. That has not only bad effects on the heart and blood vessels, but also on our brain and our feelings of complacency. That last one does not get any attention. The brain consists of about 50% of omega-3 fatty acids. It is an essential fat, the body can not produce it from other fats. Isn't it obvious we get less happy when our brain gets too little of that Omega-3 fatty acids?"

Not only less happy, also a little more stupid and finally even depressed or demented. Children become smarter adults when they are fed with mother's milk, naturally rich of Omega-3 fatty acids. Alzheimer patients have clearly a shortage of Omega-3 fatty acids in their brains. The same is true for children with ADHD and people with bipolar disorder. Supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids from food supplements almost always makes them feel better!

But what do our brains have to do with fish? Much, and it is growing ever more obvious. Omega-3 fatty acids are so fundamental to the creating and functioning of our nervous system, that a group of scientists thinks that our large Homo Sapiens brains are evolved in an environment where they got omega-3 fatty acids richly. That is: near the sea shores, where he could catch a lot of fish. "That enormous brain that gave people their unique position in nature, could only be evolved in an eco-system with a constant supply of omega-3 fatty acids," sais Elaine Morgan, the British writer of the book "The aquatic ape. "No wonder we go back in mental achievements when we don't eat those fatty acids anymore." Morgan's theory (loaned from Britisch paleontologist Alistair Hardy) in a nutshell: seven million years ago apes were forced to live near the sea shores due to a geological change. They changed their habitat from the jungle to those sea shores ... Due to the omega-3 fatty acids, the brains could grow larger and larger. Even larger than the brains of hyper intelligent dolphins. Those anthropoid apes evolved qualities typical for animals living in the sea. The constant walking around in the sea made them walk up-right. Old rests of these people (like Lucy) were found between rests of lobsters and shellfish. Very wise food!

Prisoners Less Violent When Given Supplements
 
A study published in the July 2002 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry indicates that the simple use of nutritional supplements can significantly reduce behavior problems among prisoners. The research was carried out by a team led by C. Bernard Gesch of University Laboratory of Physiology, University of Oxford

Basing the study on previous work that has shown the adverse behavioral effects of nutritional deficiencies, the researchers set out to test if adequate intakes of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids could improve antisocial behavior.

The experiment was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial of nutritional supplements on 231 young adult prisoners, comparing disciplinary offenses before and during supplementation.

Those receiving the active capsules committed an average of 26.3% fewer offenses. Compared to baseline, the effect on those taking active supplements for a minimum of 2 weeks was an average 35.1% reduction of offenses, whereas placebos remained within standard error.

Update November 2004 - a recent article published in The Observer - UK:

Criminals to be fed vitamins to improve behaviour

Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
Sunday November 28, 2004
The Observer

Criminals are to be given vitamin supplements in an unusual attempt to reduce anti-social behaviour which will test the effect of diet on the brain.

The move is controversial, with many in the prison service sceptica