healthy diet, vitamins, and fish oil help reduce depression and violence,
studies by Joseph Hibbeln, Bernard Gesch, and Stephen Schoenthaler, articles by
Felicity Lawrence in UK Guardian Unlimited and Pat Thomas in The Ecologist:
Murray 2006.10.21
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1375

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1924356,00.html

Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat

Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may
play a key role in aggressive behaviour

Felicity Lawrence Tuesday October 17, 2006 The Guardian

That Dwight Demar is able to sit in front of us, sober, calm, and employed, is
"a miracle", he declares in the cadences of a prayer-meeting sinner. He has been
rocking his 6ft 2in bulk to and fro while delivering a confessional account of
his past into the middle distance. He wants us to know what has saved him after
20 years on the streets: "My dome is working. They gave me some kind of pill and
I changed. Me, myself and I, I changed."

Demar has been in and out of prison so many times he has lost count of his
convictions. "Being drunk, being disorderly, trespass, assault and battery; you
name it, I did it. How many times I been in jail? I don't know, I was locked up
so much it was my second home."

Demar has been taking part in a clinical trial at the US government's National
Institutes for Health, near Washington. The study is investigating the effects
of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain, and the pills that have effected
Demar's "miracle" are doses of fish oil.

The results emerging from this study are at the cutting edge of the debate on
crime and punishment. In Britain we lock up more people than ever before. Nearly
80,000 people are now in our prisons, which reached their capacity this week.

But the new research calls into question the very basis of criminal justice and
the notion of culpability. It suggests that individuals may not always be
responsible for their aggression. Taken together with a study in a high-security
prison for young offenders in the UK, it shows that violent behaviour may be
attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies.

The UK prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed
multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent
offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%. Although no one is suggesting
that poor diet alone can account for complex social problems, the former chief
inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham says that he is now "absolutely convinced
that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad
diet causes bad behaviour and that good diet prevents it."

The Dutch government is currently conducting a large trial to see if nutritional
supplements have the same effect on its prison population. And this week, new
claims were made that fish oil had improved behaviour and reduced aggression
among children with some of the most severe behavioural difficulties in the UK.

Deficiency

For the clinician in charge of the US study, Joseph Hibbeln, the results of his
trial are not a miracle, but simply what you might predict if you understand the
biochemistry of the brain and the biophysics of the brain cell membrane. His
hypothesis is that modern industrialised diets may be changing the very
architecture and functioning of the brain.

We are suffering, he believes, from widespread diseases of deficiency. Just as
vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, deficiency in the essential fats the brain
needs and the nutrients needed to metabolise those fats is causing of a host of
mental problems from depression to aggression. Not all experts agree, but if he
is right, the consequences are as serious as they could be. The pandemic of
violence in western societies may be related to what we eat or fail to eat. Junk
food may not only be making us sick, but mad and bad too.

In Demar's case the aggression has blighted many lives. He has attacked his
wife. "Once she put my TV out the door, I snapped off and smacked her." His last
spell in prison was for a particularly violent assault. "I tried to kill a
person. Then I knew something need be done because I was half a hundred and I
was either going to kill somebody or get killed."

Demar's brain has blanked out much of that last attack. He can remember that a
man propositioned him for sex, but the details of his own response are hazy.

When he came out of jail after that, he bought a can of beer and seemed headed
for more of the same until a case worker who had seen adverts for Hibbeln's
trial persuaded him to take part.

The researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which
is part of NIH, had placed adverts for aggressive alcoholics in the Washington
Post in 2001. Some 80 volunteers came forward and have since been enrolled in
the double blind study. They have ranged from homeless people to a teacher to a
former secret service agent. Following a period of three weeks' detoxification
on a locked ward, half were randomly assigned to 2 grams per day of the omega-3
fatty acids EPA and DHA for three months, and half to placebos of fish-flavoured
corn oil.

An earlier pilot study on 30 patients with violent records found that those
given omega-3 supplements had their anger reduced by one-third, measured by
standard scales of hostility and irritability, regardless of whether they were
relapsing and drinking again. The bigger trial is nearly complete now and Dell
Wright, the nurse administering the pills, has seen startling changes in those
on the fish oil rather than the placebo. "When Demar came in there was always an
undercurrent of aggression in his behaviour. Once he was on the supplements he
took on the ability not to be impulsive. He kept saying, 'This is not like me'."

Demar has been out of trouble and sober for a year now. He has a girlfriend, his
own door key, and was made employee of the month at his company recently. Others
on the trial also have long histories of violence but with omega-3 fatty acids
have been able for the first time to control their anger and aggression. J, for
example, arrived drinking a gallon of rum a day and had 28 scars on his hand
from punching other people. Now he is calm and his cravings have gone. W was a
19st barrel of a man with convictions for assault and battery. He improved
dramatically on the fish oil and later told doctors that for the first time
since the age of five he had managed to go three months without punching anyone
in the head.

Threat to society

Hibbeln is a psychiatrist and physician, but as an employee of the US government
at the NIH he wears the uniform of a commander, with his decorations for service
pinned to his chest. As we queued to get past the post-9/11 security checks at
the NIH federal base, he explained something of his view of the new threat to
society.

Over the last century most western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in
the composition of their diets in which the omega-3 fatty acids that are
essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids,
mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower. In the US, for
example, soya oil accounted for only 0.02% of all calories available in 1909,
but by 2000 it accounted for 20%. Americans have gone from eating a fraction of
an ounce of soya oil a year to downing 25lbs (11.3kg) per person per year in
that period. In the UK, omega-6 fats from oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower
accounted for 1% of energy supply in the early 1960s, but by 2000 they were
nearly 5%. These omega-6 fatty acids come mainly from industrial frying for
takeaways, ready meals and snack foods such as crisps, chips, biscuits,
ice-creams and from margarine. Alcohol, meanwhile, depletes omega-3s from the
brain.

To test the hypothesis, Hibbeln and his colleagues have mapped the growth in
consumption of omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils in 38 countries since the
1960s against the rise in murder rates over the same period. In all cases there
is an unnerving match. As omega-6 goes up, so do homicides in a linear
progression. Industrial societies where omega-3 consumption has remained high
and omega-6 low because people eat fish, such as Japan, have low rates of murder
and depression.

Of course, all these graphs prove is that there is a striking correlation
between violence and omega 6-fatty acids in the diet. They don't prove that high
omega-6 and low omega-3 fat consumption actually causes violence. Moreover, many
other things have changed in the last century and been blamed for rising
violence - exposure to violence in the media, the breakdown of the family unit
and increased consumption of sugar, to take a few examples. But some of the
trends you might expect to be linked to increased violence - such as
availability of firearms and alcohol, or urbanisation - do not in fact reliably
predict a rise in murder across countries, according to Hibbeln.

There has been a backlash recently against the hype surrounding omega-3 in the
UK from scientists arguing that the evidence remains sketchy. Part of the
backlash stems from the eagerness of some supplement companies to suggest that
fish oils work might wonders even on children who have no behavioural problems.

Alan Johnson, the education secretary, appeared to be jumping on the bandwagon
recently when he floated the idea of giving fish oils to all school children.
The idea was quickly knocked down when the food standards agency published a
review of the evidence on the effect of nutrition on learning among
schoolchildren and concluded there was not enough to conclude much, partly
because very few scientific trials have been done.

Professor John Stein, of the department of physiology at Oxford University,
where much of the UK research on omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies has been based,
agrees: "There is only slender evidence that children with no particular problem
would benefit from fish oil. And I would always say [for the general population]
it's better to get omega-3 fatty acids by eating fish, which carries all the
vitamins and minerals needed to metabolise them."

However, he believes that the evidence from the UK prison study and from
Hibbeln's research in the US on the link between nutritional deficiency and
crime is " strong", although the mechanisms involved are still not fully
understood.

Hibbeln, Stein and others have been investigating what the mechanisms of a
causal relationship between diet and aggression might be. This is where the
biochemistry and biophysics comes in.

Essential fatty acids are called essential because humans cannot make them but
must obtain them from the diet. The brain is a fatty organ - it's 60% fat by dry
weight, and the essential fatty acids are what make part of its structure,
making up 20% of the nerve cells' membranes. The synapses, or junctions where
nerve cells connect with other nerve cells, contain even higher concentrations
of essential fatty acids - being made of about 60% of the omega-3 fatty acid
DHA.

Communication between the nerve cells depends on neurotransmitters, such as
serotonin and dopamine, docking with receptors in the nerve cell membrane.

Omega-3 DHA is very long and highly flexible. When it is incorporated into the
nerve cell membrane it helps make the membrane itself elastic and fluid so that
signals pass through it efficiently. But if the wrong fatty acids are
incorporated into the membrane, the neurotransmitters can't dock properly. We
know from many other studies what happens when the neurotransmitter systems
don't work efficiently. Low serotonin levels are known to predict an increased
risk of suicide, depression and violent and impulsive behaviour. And dopamine is
what controls the reward processes in the brain.

Laboratory tests at NIH have shown that the composition of tissue and in
particular of the nerve cell membrane of people in the US is different from that
of the Japanese, who eat a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids from fish. Americans
have cell membranes higher in the less flexible omega-6 fatty acids, which
appear to have displaced the elastic omega-3 fatty acids found in Japanese nerve
cells.

Hibbeln's theory is that because the omega-6 fatty acids compete with the
omega-3 fatty acids for the same metabolic pathways, when omega-6 dominates in
the diet, we can't convert the omega-3s to DHA and EPA, the longer chain
versions we need for the brain. What seems to happen then is that the brain
picks up a more rigid omega-6 fatty acid DPA instead of DHA to build the cell
membranes - and they don't function so well.

Other experts blame the trans fats produced by partial hydrogenation of
industrial oils for processed foods. Trans fats have been shown to interfere
with the synthesis of essentials fats in foetuses and infants. Minerals such as
zinc and the B vitamins are needed to metabolise essential fats, so deficiencies
in these may be playing an important part too.

There is also evidence that deficiencies in DHA/EPA at times when the brain is
developing rapidly - in the womb, in the first 5 years of life and at puberty -
can affect its architecture permanently. Animal studies have shown that those
deprived of omega-3 fatty acids over two generations have offspring who cannot
release dopamine and serotonin so effectively.

"The extension of all this is that if children are left with low dopamine as a
result of early deficits in their own or their mother's diets, they cannot
experience reward in the same way and they cannot learn from reward and
punishment. If their serotonin levels are low, they cannot inhibit their
impulses or regulate their emotional responses," Hibbeln points out.

Mental health

Here too you have one possible factor in cycles of deprivation (again, no one is
suggesting diet is the only factor) and why criminal behaviour is apparently
higher among lower socio-economic groups where nutrition is likely to be poorer.

These effects of the industrialisation of the diet on the brain were also
predicted in the 1970s by a leading fats expert in the UK, Professor Michael
Crawford, now at London's Metropolitan University. He established that DHA was
structural to the brain and foresaw that deficiencies would lead to a surge in
mental health and behavioural problems - a prediction borne out by the UK's
mental health figures.

It was two decades later before the first study of the effect of diet on
behaviour took place in a UK prison. Bernard Gesch, now a senior researcher at
Stein's Oxford laboratory, first became involved with nutrition and its
relationship to crime as a director of the charity Natural Justice in northwest
England. He was supervising persistent offenders in the community and was struck
by their diets. He later set out to test the idea that poor diet might cause
antisocial behaviour and crime in the maximum security Aylesbury prison.

His study, a placebo-controlled double blind randomised trial, took 231
volunteer prisoners and assigned half to a regime of multivitamin, mineral and
essential fatty acid supplements and half to placebos. The supplement aimed to
bring the prisoners' intakes of nutrients up to the level recommended by
government. It was not specifically a fatty acid trial, and Gesch points out
that nutrition is not pharmacology but involves complex interactions of many
nutrients.

Prison trial

Aylesbury was at the time a prison for young male offenders, aged 17 to 21,
convicted of the most serious crimes. Trevor Hussey was then deputy governor and
remembers it being a tough environment. "It was a turbulent young population.
They had problems with their anger. They were all crammed into a small place and
even though it was well run you got a higher than normal number of assaults on
staff and other prisoners."

Although the governor was keen on looking at the relationship between diet and
crime, Hussey remembers being sceptical himself at the beginning of the study.
The catering manager was good, and even though prisoners on the whole preferred
white bread, meat and confectionery to their fruit and veg, the staff tried to
encourage prisoners to eat healthily, so he didn't expect to see much of a
result.

But quite quickly staff noticed a significant drop in the number of reported
incidents of bad behaviour. "We'd just introduced a policy of 'earned
privileges' so we thought it must be that rather than a few vitamins, but we
used to joke 'maybe it's Bernard's pills'."

But when the trial finished it became clear that the drop in incidents of bad
behaviour applied only to those on the supplements and not to those on the
placebo.

The results, published in 2002, showed that those receiving the extra nutrients
committed 37% fewer serious offences involving violence, and 26% fewer offences
overall. Those on the placebos showed no change in their behaviour. Once the
trial had finished the number of offences went up by the same amount. The office
the researchers had used to administer nutrients was restored to a restraint
room after they had left.

"The supplements improved the functioning of those prisoners. It was clearly
something significant that can't be explained away. I was disappointed the
results were not latched on to. We put a lot of effort into improving prisoners'
chances of not coming back in, and you measure success in small doses."

Gesch believes we should be rethinking the whole notion of culpability. The
overall rate of violent crime in the UK has risen since the 1950s, with huge
rises since the 1970s. "Such large changes are hard to explain in terms of
genetics or simply changes of reporting or recording crime. One plausible
candidate to explain some of the rapid rise in crime could be changes in the
brain's environment. What would the future have held for those 231 young men if
they had grown up with better nourishment?" Gesch says.

He said he was currently unable to comment on any plans for future research in
prisons, but studies with young offenders in the community are being planned.

For Hibbeln, the changes in our diet in the past century are "a very large
uncontrolled experiment that may have contributed to the societal burden of
aggression, depression and cardiovascular death". To ask whether we have enough
evidence to change diets is to put the question the wrong way round. Whoever
said it was safe to change them so radically in the first place?

Young offender's diet

One young offender had been sentenced by the British courts on 13 occasions for
stealing trucks in the early hours of the morning.

Bernard Gesch recorded the boy's daily diet as follows:

Breakfast: nothing (asleep)

Mid morning: nothing (asleep)

Lunchtime: 4 or 5 cups of coffee with milk and 2½ heaped teaspoons of sugar

Mid afternoon: 3 or 4 cups of coffee with milk and 2½ heaped sugars

Tea: chips, egg, ketchup, 2 slices of white bread, 5 cups of tea or coffee with
milk and sugar

Evening: 5 cups of tea or coffee with milk and sugar, 20 cigarettes, £2 worth of
sweets, cakes and if money available 3 or 4 pints of beer.Omega-3, junk food and
the link between violence and what we eat



http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=640

Pat Thomas' letter to the Guardian, 17th October 2006
Pat Thomas, Health Editor of the Ecologist, responds to Felicity Lawrence's
article in the Guardian on the link between junk food and mental health
Date:17/10/2006 Author:Pat Thomas


Sir,

Felicity Lawrence’s piece (Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and
what we eat, Tuesday October 17, 2006) is at once encouraging and discouraging.

Encouraging because it returns our focus to the most fundamental aspect of human
health and well being – food. Discouraging because of its claim that this
research is new and because of its tendency to focus on single nutrients and
supplements as an answer. In March 2006 the Ecologist magazine devoted 8 pages
to the question of Prison vs Nutrition highlighting research dating back to the
1970s showing that what we eat fundamentally influences how we behave. This
investigation dovetailed with two major reports from the Mental Health
Foundation and Sustain highlighting the link between mental illness and a
nutritionally poor diet. This isn’t flavour of the month research, it is fact
and we ignore it at our peril.

Our brains are changing in size as well as function and substantial evidence
points to diets that are, in part, deficient in the proper mixture of essential
fats. Supplements may be useful but there are problems with this approach. The
richest and most easily assimilable sources of omega-3 fatty acids are fish oils
but, after years of using our oceans as a waste dump, fish oil supplements are
regularly found to be contaminated with mercury and other industrial pollutants.
So while they may provide valuable short-term help, pills may also have more
worrying longer-term health implications.

Also as long as we cling to the idea of the quick- or techno-fix – so
beautifully embodied in the ‘take a pill and make it better’ philosophy of
modern life – we will be unable and unwilling to address the real problems with
our food supply: too many nutrient depleting fertilisers and pesticides, animals
fed on artificial diets (grass fed beef, for instance, is much higher in omega-3
than conventionally reared beef) an over reliance on high-fat, high-sugar,
over-processed, low quality convenience foods and a couple of generations of
children who don’t know what the origins of a chop or a chip or loaf of bread
are – and worse don’t care.

As with many aspects of human development timing is everything. Supporting
proper brain development in the womb and in infancy is crucial to adult health
and behaviour. Thus in addition to feeding prisoners well, shouldn’t we make
feeding pregnant women well a priority and promote, in a much more proactive
way, the fact that ALL women should breastfeed – since it is human breastmilk
which provides the substantial energy and nutrition necessary for the growing
human brain.

The problem is global in nature – the solutions need to have similar breadth of
vision.

Pat Thomas Health Editor The Ecologist

send comments to thedrugsdontwork@...



http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=587

ASBOs vs NUTRITION

Over 1,000 juvenile delinquents showed a 44 per cent drop in antisocial
behaviour when put on a low sugar diet. So why is the government completely
ignoring what we are feeding our children, and yet is happy to spend £2,500 on
administering each ASBO?
Date:01/04/2006 Author:Pat Thomas

In October 2003 the UK government launched the latest offensive in its war on
crime, the ‘Together Campaign’, across England and Wales – sold to the public as
a tough stand against crime in the local community. The campaign manifesto
emphasised the ‘wide ranging’ powers that local agencies have to keep the peace:
acceptable behaviour contracts (ABCs); anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs);
parenting orders; injunctions; vehicle removal; mediation; diversionary schemes;
preventive work; and witness protection programmes.

Like all wars, the war on crime comes with an aggressive moralistic rhetoric
that sets up an adversarial dynamic ultimately more effective at preventing
insight than it is at preventing crime. Methods of enforcement such as the much
publicised ASBOs are appealing weapons because they represent discernable
action, at least in the short term. But consider what’s happening over the
longer term.

Home office figures show that more than 60 per cent of young male thugs and
muggers are convicted of another offence within two years of ending their
sentence. Three quarters of young male burglars and thieves also reoffend within
two years. A massive 90 per cent of offenders on the drug treatment and testing
order, a community sentence for offenders who misuse drugs, go on to commit more
crimes.

The ASBO is hailed as an effective way of keeping petty offenders, particularly
juveniles, from moving on to more serious offences. In some cases this may be
true. But according to the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of
Offenders (NACRO), the national crime reduction charity, there is little
research available on their effectiveness and little proof that they actually
work. Figures released in June 2005 show that 40 per cent of juveniles have
breached an ASBO, and 46 per cent of these young people have ended up in custody
for the breach.

While the government continues to plough its enforcement furrow, polls suggest
that most of us would like to understand what’s causing the aggressive behaviour
and crime in the first place. For instance, a 2005 report commissioned by the
social policy charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on behalf of the Institute
for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), found that just 20 per cent thought it
would be better to get tougher with offenders, while around 66 per cent believed
that prevention was the best way to tackle rowdiness and vandalism.

Radical findings

Enter Bernard Gesch, physiologist at the University of Oxford anddirector of the
behavioural research charity Natural Justice. In 2002 Gesch and his colleagues
produced a remarkable piece of research showing a direct link between
nutritional status and criminal behaviour. In a British prison, 231 men between
the ages of 18 and 21 were divided into two study groups. One was given
nutritional supplements along with their meals, the other group placebos.
Neither the prisoners, nor the guards, nor the researchers at the prison knew
who had the real supplements and who had the fakes.

The researchers then monitored the number of times participants violated prison
rules, and compared the results to data that had been collected in the months
leading up to the nutrition study.

The supplements given in this study provided little more than the recommended
daily requirement of vitamins, minerals and fatty acids; they were not the
‘mega-doses’ often used in nutritional studies. Yet the results were staggering.
Prisoners given supplements for four consecutive months committed an average of
26 per cent fewer violations compared to the preceding period. For serious
breaches of conduct, particularly the use of violence, the number of violations
decreased 37 per cent. Those given placebos showed no marked change in
behaviour. This particular study differed from many in the social sciences in
its thoroughness and scientific rigour. The carefully constructed experiment
ruled out the possibility that ethnic, social, psychological or other variables
could affect the outcome. As a result, Gesch and colleagues emerged with
convincing scientific proof that poor nutrition plays a significant role in
triggering aggressive behaviour.

Voluminous research

Gesch was not the first in his field to produce these results. As far back as
1978 researchers reporting in the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry compared
the success of standard probation with nutritional education to rehabilitate 102
offenders in the community over 12 months. They found that the re-offending
rates of the nutrition education group were almost a third of that of the
probation group.

Over the last 30 years there has been a steady accumulation of similar studies
linking poor Prisoners given supplements for 4 consecutive months committed an
average of 26 per cent fewer violations compared to the preceding period diet to
anti-social behaviour. But in particular Gesch’s findings build on those of Dr.
Stephen Schoenthaler, a professor of Criminal Justice at the California State
University in Stanislaus, who has long argued that better food equates with
better behaviour, as well as with increased IQ and school performance.

Schoenthaler and his colleagues have studied nutrition and behaviour at numerous
juvenile and adult correctional facilities and in US public schools (UK state
schools). His catalogue of studies over the last two decades isvoluminous and
has produced impressive results simply by making adjustments in food intake
and/or adding nutritional supplements.

For instance, in a typical study, Schoenthaler supplemented the diets of 71
residents of a state juvenile treatment facility. During the treatment phase of
the double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, overall violence fell 66
per cent from 306 incidents to 104. Total AWOL and escape attempts fell 84 per
cent from 79 to 13 incidents and destruction or theft of state property dropped
51 per cent from 49 to 24 incidents.

In another study involving two California Youth Authority prison camps, 402
inmates were divided into groups and given vitamin supplements or placebos for
15 weeks. Those given 100 per cent of the US recommended daily allowance (RDA)
of vitamins and minerals showed a 38 per cent decline in serious rule violations
– an almost identical finding to that of Gesch and his colleagues. In contrast,
the group given placebos actually showed a small but statistically insignificant
increase in violations.

Much of Schoenthaler’s early work, though observational, is also interesting
because of what it took out of the diet – junk foods and in particular high
sugar snacks.

In a 1983 study of 3,000 imprisoned teenagers, snack foods were replaced with
healthier options containing reduced refined and sugary foods. During the year
in which diets were changed, violent and anti-social incidents decreased by
almost half. There was also a 21 per cent reduction in anti-social behaviour,
100 per cent reduction in suicides, 25 per cent reduction in assaults and 75 per
cent reduction in use of restraints.

In a smaller study of 68 juveniles receiving a nutritionally superior diet, the
incidence of assault dropped 82 per cent; theft dropped 77 per cent; general
rule violations dropped 23 per cent; and fighting dropped 13 per cent within
seven months of instigating a junk food free diet. A follow-up trial with 276
children gave one group healthy foods while the other stayed on their junk food
diets. The rate of anti-social behaviour among the children on the healthy diet
was half that of those eating a poor diet. On the basis of these results
Schoenthaler went on to work with the Los Angeles Probation Department on a diet
behaviour programme.

Over 1,000 juvenile delinquents showed a 44 per cent drop in anti-social
behaviour when put on a low sugar diet. Gesch drew similar conclusions from a
1990 UK pilot project called the South Cumbria Alternative
Sentencing Options (SCASO). In it serious juvenile offenders were subjected to a
number of tests for: vitamin and mineral deficiencies;the presence of toxic
metals; poor blood sugar control; and an individual dietary assessment. What he
found was that habitual offenders had several biochemical problems in common, in
particular glucose intolerance and zinc defi ciency.

Remarkably, every single person in the study exhibited abnormal glucose
tolerance (reactive hypoglycaemia), a problem triggered by consumption of sugar,
sugary foods and stimulants (such as coffee, tea and colas), but also
carbohydrate-rich foods (eg crisps or fruit) without protein alongside. Research
has shown that an inability to metabolise blood glucose properly is a common
problem among habitual offenders. When Gesch placed the volunteers on a
programme of ‘nutritional rehabilitation’, their behaviour improved.

With all this accumulated evidence Gesch believes that, ‘Having a bad diet is
now a better predictor of future violence than past violent behaviour. In fact,
predicting future criminal behaviour from a criminal past has statistically
little better than a random chance of being correct. Likewise, a diagnosis of
psychopathy, generally perceived as being a better predictor than a criminal
past, it is still miles behind what you can predict just from looking at what a
person eats.’ While diet is by no means the only influence on the way the mind
functions and on behaviour he adds, ‘We may have seriously underestimated its
importance.’

In fact it is quite possible that given the strength of these effects, poor
diets could be altering social norms of behaviour without our even being aware
of it, since inadequate nutrition not only affects behaviour, it also affects
perception and insight to the extent that a nutritionally deprived person may
not have the mental faculties to differentiate between right or wrong, or
appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Over 1,000 juvenile delinquents showed
a 44 per cent drop in anti-social behaviour when put on a low sugar diet.

‘The take home message may be that through our dietary complacency we may have
destroyed our ability to think. And if it is true that we are what we eat, since
we have made unprecedented changes to what we are now eating, shouldn’t we be
concerned as to what we are turning ourselves into?’

Joining the dots

While the link between food and physical health is more widely accepted by
professional and lay people alike, the relationship between nutrition and a
healthy mind continues to be controversial.

In part this is because during their education, doctors and psychologists are
given little training in nutrition. Likewise criminologists are rarely educated
in biochemistry and nutritionists are offered no hands-on experience with
lawbreakers or the mentally ill. Professionals in these disciplines rarely
interact with each other and this isolation means that evidence gleaned from
studies into the link between nutrition and behaviour often ends up in a
scientific no-man’s-land with no single group knowing how to interpret it or put
its findings into action. Nevertheless, Gesch maintains: ‘It isn’t too hard to
join up the dots.’

Our reticence also stems from the belief that the brain has formidable defences.
Encased in bone and surrounded by the blood brain barrier, which in theory
prevents all but necessary glucose from reaching the brain, we have assumed that
the brain was separate from the other organs of the body and impenetrable.

This blithe assumption has for many years stalled large-scale, in-depth studies
into the link between nutrition and behaviour. But although the brain is better
protected than other organs,it’s been known for decades that toxins can and do
regularly get through and that it does change in response to what the body is
being fed. In particular, children who are brought up on diets where there are
not adequate nutrients to support this extraordinary organ can exhibit permanent
changes in brain structure, which are played out in their day-to-day behaviour.

For instance, in 2004 a major study published in the American Journal of
Psychiatry found that children who suffered certain nutritional deficiencies –
specifically of zinc, iron, B vitamins and protein – early in life demonstrated
a shocking 41 per cent increase in aggressive behaviour over well fed children
by the age of eight. By 17 years of age they were showing a 51 per cent increase
in violent and anti-social behaviours.

Modern diets that are high in sugar, fat and synthetic additives and low in
nutrients amount to what Gesch calls ‘high calorie malnutrition’, a recent trend
in human evolution. ‘In the last 200 years we have made unprecedented changes to
the human diet. The astonishing thing is that these changes have occurred
without any systematic evaluation of the possible impact on the human brain.’

The result, says Gesch, is ‘a global, uncontrolled experiment on the human
brain.’

Scientists are now seeing the effects of this ‘uncontrolled experiment’ in
seemingly diverse conditions such as dementias, depression, schizophrenia, ADHD
and learning difficulties (see sidebar). The results of these studies have
attracted the interest of expert bodies such as the World Health Organization
(WHO) which are concerned, if unable to understand, why human behaviour is
changing so dramatically and why mental health problems are becoming more
commonplace. WHO estimates, for example, that the incidence of children’s mental
illness will double by 2020. Among adults, it says that depression will surpass
heart disease as the number one cause of avoidable early death by that time.

Body and mind

The brain is a metabolic powerhouse. While it accounts for just two per cent of
our body weight, it uses a massive 20 per cent of our energy.

To stay healthy the brain needs to work synchronously with other major organs,
especially the heart. ‘The heart is the nutrient pump for the brain,’ says
Gesch, and around 40 per cent of its energy output is geared towards feeding the
brain.

Blood flow carries the brain’s supply of energy and nutrients, and without a
steady flow of nutrients the brain’s information processing capacity becomes
restricted.

But the brain also has a very different composition from other organs. It’s
probably the most chemically sophisticated organ in the body and a steady supply
of nutrients is crucial to produce the chemicals, for instance neurotransmitters
like serotonin and dopamine, which help it function properly and are known to
affect mood.

Manipulation of these brain chemicals is fundamental to many of the
pharmaceutical solutions we employ to modify mental states and behavioural
problems. Without an understanding of the body/mind/food connection, medicine
and psychiatry have relied heavily on pharmaceutical solutions to behavioural
problems.

But often drug solutions – which strive to alter the same brain chemicals
produced by a healthy diet – just make things worse. Indeed no psychiatric drug
is free from profound adverse effects, and none tackle the root of the problem
or produce permanent changes in behaviour.

A study found that children who suffered certain nutritional deficiencies early
in life demonstrated a 41 percent increase in aggressive behaviour over well fed
children by the age of eight.

Drugs used to control both adult and juvenile behaviour can trigger paradoxical
reactions that cause behaviour and impulse control to deteriorate. The
scientific research documenting the connection between violence, suicide and the
use of psychiatric drugs which ‘work’ by manipulating brain chemistry, is now
overwhelming.

The anti-depressant Prozac, for example, can provoke anxiety and agitation, as
well as insomnia and bizarre dreams, in a large percentage of patients. It can
also cause hypoglycaemia with anxiety, chills, cold sweats, confusion, weakness
and other symptoms of low blood sugar.

Ritalin is another example. In the US alone, approximately four million children
are currently taking this amphetamine-like drug widely prescribed to treat ADHD.

Backwards Britain

In light of the alternatives, a dietary approach to behaviour seems both
sensible and humane, and yet governments have been slow to act. The Netherlands
is the only country where the results of Gesch’s research are being put into
practice. Dutch prison authorities are currently trailing nutritional
supplements in 11 institutions as a means of improving prisoners’ behaviour.

While British authorities have largely refused to embrace the nutritional model,
there is hope. In 2004, Prisons Minister Paul Goggins revealed that the Home
Office was considering research on offenders’ diets, which would involve giving
daily supplements of fatty acids, trace minerals and vitamins to see if they
reduce anti-social behaviour among young offenders who are serving community
sentences, or who have recently been released from jail. However, the move was
made dependent on results from the Dutch trials and has yet to be implemented.

Given that problems in the UK prison system have become worse in the interval
since Gesch’s research was published, and that reoffending rates are so
unacceptably high, it makes sense to ask the question: why are we waiting?

Gesch maintains some critics say that allowing offenders to ‘blame’ their diets
for the choices they have made allows them to escape responsibility for their
own actions. Such detractors, he says, cling to the theory that how we behave is
a function of free will – a central rationale of the criminal justice system
that allows us to assign notions such as culpability and guilt. ‘But how exactly
can you exercise free will without involving the brain? More to the point, how
exactly can the brain function without its nutrient supply?’

Schoenthaler has stated publicly that: ‘People should be responsible for what
they eat, just like they are held responsible for when they drink and drive.’
But if such people are incarcerated, and must choose daily from a contrived menu
of available food items, then it is beholden on those creating the menu to
ensure that every item on it is nutrient rich and supportive of the mind as well
as the body. It is also incumbent on the powers that be to ensure prisoners are
given a programme of nutritional rehabilitation that will stick with them once
they are released. Clearly, the responsibility for what they eat rests on
individual as well as institutional shoulders.

A way forward

Proponents of the dietary approach aren’t arguing that diet is the only cause of
anti-social or violent behaviour. But providing a healthy diet simply has no
downsides. Based on available research it will work irrespective of social,
legislative or racial boundaries because human metabolism is common to us all.

One of the problems with criminal justice, particularly with young offenders, is
knowing when to intervene. If you intervene too early and drag youngsters into
facilities for young offenders, it introduces what is known as ‘net widening’,
where someone who may not be an offender quickly becomes one through association
with criminal peers. But if you intervene too late you are also going to end up
with an escalation of offending.

The complicated geometry of when to intervene with a youngster in trouble is a
good illustration of the saneness of the dietary approach espoused by Gesch and
others. After all, says Gesch, ‘Can you think of any reason at any stage where
providing a youngster with a better diet is going to be prejudicial?’

The nutritional approach is also cost effective. In May 2005 – prompted by
outspoken and very public criticism on a TV series by chef Jamie Oliver –
British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his plans to make an additional £280
million available for improving the nutritional quality of school lunches.
Natural Justice estimates that it would cost just £3.5 million to provide
supplements to all the prisoners in the UK – a mere fraction of the current
prison catering budget of £100 million and the total prison budget of £2 billion
a year.

Likewise, it costs on average £2,500 to administer an ASBO. If the order is
breached and the person ends up in custody, it costs a minimum of £4,450 a month
to keep them there – an expensive process set against a current re-offending
rate for young people released from custody fluctuating around the 80 per cent
mark.

Gesch argues that such sums could be better spent on cost effective schemes that
have a proven track record of tackling and reducing anti-social behaviour.
‘Let’s just say – and this is just a simple hope – if this approach works the
implications are fairly massive. At the moment we are spending untold billions
on dealing with the problems of mental illness and on building more prisons to
contain behaviour problems. Communities are suffering. The people who are
victims of mental problems and who are committing these crimes are suffering.

‘What if some of that suffering could be prevented? What if something as simple
as nutrients could actually result in a situation where a significant proportion
of people – and I’m not claiming all – are less likely to become offenders in
the first place. That must mean there will be fewer victims, implying the
potential for a more peaceful society. That must be a prize worth pursuing
fully.’


FEEDING MINDS

The most recent figures show that mental ill-health is costing the UK almost
£100 billion a year. A recent review by the Mental Health Foundation in
conjunction with Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, concluded
that this figure could be slashed if individuals at risk were put on better
diets. The report, Changing Diets, Changing Minds drew on data from more than
500 studies and concluded that food can have an immediate and lasting effect
upon a person’s mental health and behaviour because of the way it affects the
structure and function of the brain. It also noted that changes to the human
diet in the last 50 years or so are an important factor behind the major rise of
mental ill-health in the UK and other countries.

These changes include higher consumption of nutritionally inferior convenience
foods, which are laden with salt, fat, sugar and additives. There are now
320,000 different packaged foods in the marketplace. The convenience factor
means we grow less food ourselves and we prepare less fresh food ourselves.
Comparing today’s diets to those of 1942 Britain, for example, the researchers
found a 34 per cent decline in our vegetable consumption, Britons eat 59 per
cent less fish and half as much milk and eggs. In contrast, our consumption of
refined cereals and sugar has risen dramatically; cereals now comprise up to 30
per cent of our total diets and we now consume 44kg of sugar per person per
year. Alcohol consumption has increased 19 per cent in the last decade, and in
the UK the average person drinks 186 litres of soft drinks a year. At the same
time breastfeeding rates have declined. Breastmilk provides substantial energy
and nutrition for the brain and yet globally only 35 per cent o
f infants are breastfed exclusively.

But declines in the nutritional value of fresh foods – something that has
hitherto not been factored into the diet/mental health equation – have also left
their mark. Pointing the finger at industrialised farming, the report Changing
Diets, Changing Minds notes that the drive to increase global agricultural
output has resulted in a loss of genetic diversity in food crops, higher use of
pesticides, depletion of the nutrient content of the soil, and loss of
micro-nutrients as the foods are shipped halfway across the world. In short,
even when we do eat fresh food, it is now substantially less nutritious than it
once was.

The effects of these substantial changes in our diets on mental health are,
according to the authors, already apparent. Four conditions in particular have
shown strong links with the kinds of nutritional defi ciencies common in modern
diets:

ADHD

ADHD is most common in childhood and adolescence.
Recent studies have found that children diagnosed with ADHD may be suffering
from essential fatty acid (EFA) defi ciency. EFAs are found in abundance in oily
fish and grass fed beef, and low levels of omega-3 fatty acid in particular can
worsen symptoms.

So can deficiencies in zinc and magnesium. There is some evidence that high
sugar intake can also provoke behavioural problems in children with ADHD.

Depression

Severe depression has increased dramatically in the past century due not only to
more life stress and changing social networks, but also changes in nutrition.
Research has established that rates of major depression, post-partum depression
and seasonal affective disorder are consistently lower in fish eating nations.
In contrast, high consumption of polyunsaturated fats – especially the omega 6
fats so abundant in junk foods – have been found to worsen major depression and
bipolar disorder. Depression is also associated with deficiencies zinc and
vitamins B (especially folate) and C.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the only disease that is distributed roughly equally throughout
every population in the world. There is no evidence that general nutritional
deficiencies cause schizophrenia, but western industrialised diets high in fat
and sugar can substantially aggravate the condition. Research suggests that low
intakes of saturated fat or high intakes of EFAs from vegetables, fish and
seafood translate into lower levels of schizophrenia, as does breastfeeding,
which supplies essential fats and nutrients to the infant brain. More data shows
that essential fatty acids, vitamins and folate supplements can mediate symptoms
of schizophrenia.

Alzheimer’s Disease

A generally healthy diet can have a substantial protective effect against
different types of dementias including Alzheimer’s. While high intakes of
saturated fat can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, high fish consumption (which
boosts levels of essential fatty acids) leads to low levels of the disease among
the elderly in countries like Japan. Elsewhere in the world high intakes of
monounsaturated fatty acids, cereals and fi sh appear to decrease the risk of
dementia. High dietary intakes of B vitamins, especially folate, and vitamins C
and E also appear to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.


NO MORE EXCUSES, NO MORE DELAYS

Let’s stop making feeble excuses about the lack of conclusive data, how much it
would cost and how complicated it would be to implement nutritional programmes
in UK prisons. It is time for doctors, scientists, psychologists, prison
authorities and politicians acknowledge the proven link between diet and
behaviour and to formulate a programme of nutritional rehabilitation for
offenders that has been proven to cut reoffending rates.

Visit Natural Justice on the web at http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/natural.justice/

Bernard Gesch,
c/o University Laboratory of Physiology,
Parks Road. Oxford OX1 3PT United Kingdom
Email: bernard.gesch@...

The report Changing Diets, Changing Minds:
how food affects mental health and behaviour can be downloaded at
http://www.sustainweb.org/pubslist.php?mode=download&id=145

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/html/content/changing_minds.pdf
Download Sustain's report
950 KB pdf 116 pages 17 pages references

[ This report was written by Courtney Van de Weyer, and edited by Jeanette
Longfield from Sustain,
Iain Ryrie and Deborah Cornah from the Mental Health Foundation*
and Kath Dalmeny from the Food Commission.
We would like to thank the following for their assistance throughout the
production of this report, from its conception to its review:
Matthew Adams (Good Gardeners Association),
Nigel Baker (National Union of Teachers),
Michelle Berridale-Johnson (Foods Matter),
Sally Bunday (Hyperactive Children's Support Group),
Martin Caraher (Centre for Food Policy, City University),
Michael Crawford (Institute of Brain Chemistry and
Human Nutrition, London Metropolitan University),
Helen Crawley (Caroline Walker Trust),
Amanda Geary (Food and Mood),
Bernard Gesch (Natural Justice),
Maddy Halliday (formerly of the Mental Health Foundation),
Joseph Hibbeln (National Institutes of Health, USA),
Malcolm Hooper (Autism Research Unit, University of Sunderland),
Tim Lang (Centre for Food Policy, City University),
Tracey Maher (Young Minds Magazine),
Erik Millstone (Social Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex),
Kate Neil (Centre for Nutrition Education),
Malcolm Peet (Consultant Psychiatrist, Doncaster and South Humber Healthcare NHS
Trust),
Alex Richardson (University of Oxford, Food and Behaviour Research), Linda
Seymour (Mentality),
Andrew Whitley (The Village Bakery)
and Kate Williams (Chief Dietician,
South London and Maudsley NHS Trust).
We would also like to thank the Mental Health Foundation
and the Tudor Trust for providing funding for the
production of this report. ]

http://www.sustainweb.org/
Sustain, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF
Tel: 020 7837 1228 Email: sustain@...


A mirror report Feeding Minds can be downloaded from
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/page.cfm?pagecode=PBBRMH#feeding
5.5 MB pdf 72 pages
[ This report was written by Dr. Deborah Cornah, Consultant to the Mental Health
Foundation,
[ Centre for Research into Psychological Development, Department of Psychology,
University of Southampton, UK. dcornah@... ]
based on research by Courtney Van De Weyer, Project Officer at Sustain: the
alliance for better food and farming . The work was commissioned by Iain Ryrie,
Research Programme Director at the Foundation, and was edited by Jeanette
Longfield, Co-ordinator at Sustain, Celia Richardson, Director of Communications
at the Foundation, and Iain Ryrie.
The Mental Health Foundation and Sustain would like to acknowledge the following
for their contributions to the production of this report:
Maddy Halliday, former Director of UK Policy and Scotland Development, Mental
Health Foundation
Toby Williamson and Isabella Goldie at the Foundation, for their comments and UK
perspective during the development of the recommendations
The services using diet and nutrition to promote mental health or to manage
mental health problems, illustrated in our case studies
Experts in the field who reviewed an earlier draft of this report. ]

www.mentalhealth.org.uk
Locations
* Mental Health Foundation, London Office,
9th Floor, Sea Containers House, 20 Upper Ground, London, SE1 9QB, United
Kingdom. Tel: 020 7803 1100. Fax: 020 7803 1111.
Email: mhf@...
* Mental Health Foundation, Scotland Office,
Merchants House, 30 George Square, Glasgow G2 1EG.
Email: scotland@... Tel: 0141 572 0125.

Feedback

If you want to tell us what you think about this website please use the
Guestbook or contact the Web Team at the Mental Health Foundation, Email:
webteam@... Tel: 020 7803 1147.


Natural Justice estimates that it would cost just £3.5 million to provide
supplements to all UK prisoners - a mere fraction of the prison catering budget


Contact Organisations

The following are UK-based organisations that work specifically on the
connection between diet and mental
health and behaviour. It is not a definitive list and does not include many
organisations that may provide
information about the connection along with their other work.

Food and Behaviour Research
Box 6066, Nairn, Scotland IV12 4YN
www.fabresearch.org

The Food and Mood Project
Box 2737, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2GN
www.foodandmood.org

The Hyperactive Children's' Support Group (HACSG)
71 Whyke Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 7PD
www.hacsg.org.uk

Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition
North Campus, London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Rd., London N7 8DB
www.north.londonmet.ac.uk/ibchn

Institute of Optimum Nutrition - Brain Bio Centre
13 Blades Court, Deodar Road, Putney, London SW15 2NU
www.brainbiocentre.com

Natural Justice
University Laboratory of Physiology,
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PT
www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/natural.justice

The Schizophrenia Association of Great Britain
"Bryn Hyfryd", The Crescent, Bangor. Gwynedd LL57 2AG
www.sagb.co.uk
*******************************************************



Int Rev Psychiatry. 2006 Apr; 18(2): 107-18.
Omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies in neurodevelopment, aggression and autonomic
dysregulation: opportunities for intervention.
Hibbeln JR, jhibbeln@...,
Ferguson TA,
Blasbalg TL.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, 20892

Mechanisms by which aggressive and depressive disorders may be exacerbated by
nutritional deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids
are considered.

Early developmental deficiencies in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and
eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) may lower serotonin levels at critical periods of
neurodevelopment
and may result in a cascade of suboptimal development of neurotransmitter
systems limiting regulation of the limbic system
by the frontal cortex.

Residual developmental deficits may be manifest as dysregulation of sympathetic
responses to stress including decreased heart rate variability and hypertension,
which in turn have been linked to behavioral dysregulation.

Little direct data are available to disentangle residual neurodevelopmental
effects from reversible adult pathologies.

Ensuring optimal intakes of omega-3 fatty acids
during early development and adulthood
shows considerable promise in preventing aggression and hostility.
PMID: 16777665



J Hum Nutr Diet. 2003 Jun; 16(3): 167-79.
Food provision and the nutritional implications of food choices
made by young adult males, in a young offenders' institution.
Eves A, a.eves@...
Gesch B.
School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.

The nutritional adequacy of diets provided by a prison was assessed by analysis
of the kitchen menu for 1 week of a 4-week cycle.

Dietary intakes were determined using a predefined 7-day diet diary in which
prisoners indicated what they had eaten, and how much.

A total of 159 prisoners took part in the study.

The food provided by the prison kitchen was broadly in line with current dietary
recommendations.

Vitamin content exceeded recommendations, with the exception of niacin in the
vegetarian menu (12.6 mg compared with the reference nutrient intake of 16.8
mg).

Selenium content was low in all menus, but particularly in the vegetarian menu
in 1997 where it equalled the lower reference nutrient intake (LRNI) (39.5
microg).

Food choices made by prisoners
resulted in a wide variation in dietary intakes.

Fat intake (as a proportion of energy)
exceeded the recommended 35% in 82% of diets in 1996,
and 64% of diets in 1997.

In 1996, 34% of prisoners had intakes above 40% energy as fat.

High fat intakes were largely the result of consuming items from the prison
shop.

Vitamin D intakes were low (3.4 and 3.3 microg in 1996 and 1997, respectively)
compared with the recommendation (10 microg) for those with limited exposure to
sunlight.

Intakes of a number of minerals fell below recommendations, with some prisoners
barely meeting the LRNI.

This was particularly notable for selenium where 35% of prisoners in 1996, and
60% of prisoners in 1997 had intakes below the LRNI.
PMID: 12753110


J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb; 6(1): 19-29.
Comment in:
J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb; 6(1): 31-5.
The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation
on the intelligence of American schoolchildren:
a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.
Schoenthaler SJ, stephens@...,
Bier ID,
Young K,
Nichols D,
Jansenns S.
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice,
California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock 95380, USA.

CONTEXT:
Many medical, nutrition, and education professionals
have long suspected that poor diet impairs the academic performance
of Western schoolchildren;
academic performance often improves after improved diet.

However, others have suggested that such academic gains may be due to
psychologic effects rather than nutrition.

To resolve this issue, two independent research teams conducted randomized
trials in which children were given placebos or low-dose vitamin-mineral tablets
designed to raise nutrient intake to the equivalent of a well-balanced diet.

Both teams reported significantly greater gains in nonverbal intelligence among
the supplemented groups.

The findings were important because of the apparent inadequacy
of diet they revealed
and the magnitude of the potential for increased intelligence.

However, none of the ten subsequent replications,
or the two original trials, were without limitations
leaving this issue in controversy.

OBJECTIVES:
To determine if schoolchildren who consume low-dose vitamin-mineral tablets will
have a significantly larger increase in nonverbal intelligence than children who
consume placebos in a study that overcomes the primary criticisms
directed at the previous 12 controlled trials.

DESIGN:
A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
using stratified randomization within each teacher's class
based on preintervention nonverbal intelligence.

SETTINGS AND SUBJECTS:
Two "working class," primarily Hispanic, elementary schools in Phoenix, Arizona,
participated in the study.

Slightly more than half the teachers in each school distributed the tablets
daily to 245 schoolchildren aged 6 to 12 years.

INTERVENTION: Daily vitamin-mineral supplementation at 50% of the U.S. daily
recommended allowance (RDA) for 3 months versus placebo.

OUTCOME MEASURES:
Post-test nonverbal IQ, as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
Children-Revised (WISC-R), while controlling for pretest nonverbal IQ as a
covariate.

FOUR MAIN RESULTS:
First, a significant difference of 2.5 IQ points (95% CI: 1.85-3.15)
was found between 125 children given active tablets
and 120 children given placebo tablets (p = 0.038).

Second, this finding is consistent with the mean 3.2 IQ point net gain found in
the 12 similar but less rigorous studies.

Third, a significantly higher proportion of children in the active group gained
15 or more IQ points
when compared to the placebo group (p < 0.01).

Fourth, although 81 matched pairs produced no difference at all in nonverbal IQ
gain,
the modest 2.5 IQ point net gain for the entire sample can be explained by the
remaining 24 children who took active tablets,
and had a 16 point higher net gain in IQ
than the remaining 19 placebo controls.

CONCLUSIONS:
This study confirms that vitamin-mineral supplementation modestly raised the
nonverbal intelligence of some groups of Western schoolchildren by 2 to 3 points
but not that of most Western schoolchildren,
presumably because the majority were already adequately nourished.

This study also confirms that vitamin-mineral supplementation
markedly raises the non-verbal intelligence
of a minority of Western schoolchildren,
presumably because they were too poorly nourished
before supplementation for optimal brain function.

Because nonverbal intelligence is closely associated with academic performance,
it follows that schools with children who consume substandard diets should find
it difficult to produce academic performance equal to those schools with
children
who consume diets that come closer
to providing the nutrients suggested in the U.S. RDA.

The parents of schoolchildren whose academic performance is substandard would be
well advised to seek a nutritionally oriented physician
for assessment of their children's nutritional status
as a possible etiology.
PMID: 10706232


J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb; 6(1): 7-17.
Comment in:
J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb; 6(1): 31-5.
The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on juvenile delinquency among
American schoolchildren:
a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.
Schoenthaler SJ, stephens@...,
Bier ID.
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, California State University,
Stanislaus, Turlock 95380, USA.

CONTEXT:
Numerous studies conducted in juvenile correctional institutions have reported
that violence and serious antisocial behavior have been cut almost in half after
implementing nutrient-dense diets that are consistent with the World Health
Organization's guidelines for fats, sugar, starches, and protein ratios.

Two controlled trials tested whether the cause of the behavioral improvements
was psychological or biological in nature by comparing the behavior of offenders
who either received placebos or vitamin-mineral supplements designed to provide
the micronutrient equivalent of a well-balanced diet.

These randomized trials reported that institutionalized offenders,
aged 13 to 17 years or 18 to 26 years,
when given active tablets produced about 40% less violent and other antisocial
behavior than the placebo controls.

However, generalization could not be made to typical schoolchildren without a
controlled trial examining violence and antisocial behavior in public schools.

OBJECTIVES:
To determine if schoolchildren, aged 6 to 12 years,
who are given low dose vitamin-mineral tablets will produce significantly less
violence and antisocial behavior in school than classmates who are given
placebos.

DESIGN:
A stratified randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with pretest and
post-test measures of antisocial behavior
on school property.

SETTINGS AND SUBJECTS:
Two "working class," primarily Hispanic elementary schools
in Phoenix, Arizona.
Approximately half of the potential schoolchildren participated,
i.e., 468 students aged 6 to 12 years.

INTERVENTION:
Daily vitamin-mineral supplementation at 50% of the U.S. recommended daily
allowance (RDA) for 4 months versus placebo.

The supplement was designed to raise vitamin-mineral intake up to the levels
currently recommended by the National Academy of Sciences for children aged 6 to
11 years.

OUTCOME MEASURE:
Violent and nonviolent delinquency as measured by official school disciplinary
records.

RESULTS:
Of the 468 students randomly assigned to active or placebo tablets,
the 80 who were disciplined at least once between September 1st and May 1st
served as the research sample.

During intervention, the 40 children who received active tablets were
disciplined, on average, 1 time each, a 47% lower mean rate of antisocial
behavior than the 1.875 times each for the 40 children who received placebos
(95% confidence interval, 29% to 65%, < 5 .020).

The children who took active tablets produced lower rates of antisocial behavior
in 8 types of recorded infractions:
threats/fighting, vandalism, being disrespectful, disorderly conduct, defiance,
obscenities, refusal to work or serve, endangering others, and nonspecified
offenses.

CONCLUSION:
Poor nutritional habits in children that lead to low concentrations of
water-soluble vitamins in blood, impair brain function and subsequently cause
violence and other serious antisocial behavior.

Correction of nutrient intake, either through a well-balanced diet or low-dose
vitamin-mineral supplementation, corrects the low concentrations of vitamins in
blood, improves brain function and subsequently lowers institutional violence
and antisocial behavior
by almost half.

This paper adds to the literature by enabling previous research to be
generalized from older incarcerated subjects with a history of antisocial
behavior to a normal population of younger children in an educational setting.
PMID: 10706231



soft drinks and adolescent hyperactivity, mental distress, conduct problems,
Mayne Thoresen, Espen Bjertness 2006 Oct., A J Pub Health

Am J Public Health. 2006 Oct; 96(10): 1815-20.
Consumption of Soft Drinks and Hyperactivity, Mental Distress, and Conduct
Problems Among Adolescents in Oslo, Norway
Lars Lien, MD, MSc, lars.lien@...,
Nanna Lien, PhD, nanna.lien@...,
Sonja Heyerdahl, PhD,
Magne Thoresen, PhD and
Espen Bjertness, PhD
The authors are with the University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Lars Lien and Espen Bjertness are with the
Section for Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology,
Institute of General Practice and Community Medicine.
Nanna Lien is with the
Department for Nutritional Research,
Institute of Basic Medical Sciences.
Magne Thoresen is with the
Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences.
Sonja Heyerdahl is with the
Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Correspondence:
Requests for reprints should be sent to Lars Lien, MD, MSc,
Section for Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Oslo,
PO Box 1130, Blindern 0138 Oslo, Norway

Objectives.
We examined whether high levels of consumption of sugar-containing soft drinks
were associated with mental distress, hyperactivity, and conduct problems among
adolescents.

Methods.
A cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted with 10th-grade students
in Oslo, Norway (n = 5498).
We used the Hopkins Symptom Checklist and the Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire to assess mental health outcomes.

Results.
There was a J-shaped dose–response relationship between soft drink consumption
and mental distress, conduct problems, and total mental health difficulties
score;
that is, adolescents who did not consume soft drinks had higher scores
(indicating worse symptoms) than those who consumed soft drinks at moderate
levels but lower scores than those with high consumption levels.

The relationship was linear for hyperactivity.

In a logistic regression model, the association between soft drink consumption
and mental health problems remained significant after adjustment for behavioral,
social, and food-related variables.

The highest adjusted odds ratios were observed for conduct problems among boys
and girls who consumed 4 or more glasses of sugar-containing soft drinks per
day.

Conclusions.
High consumption levels of sugar-containing soft drinks were associated with
mental health problems among adolescents even after adjustment for possible
confounders.
PMID: 17008578
*******************************************************



"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority,
to actively find, quickly share, and positively act upon the facts
about healthy and safe food, drink, and environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 78 members, 1,376 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1340
aspartame groups and books: updated research review of 2004.07.16:
Murray 2006.05.11


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1374
47 UK Members of Parliament now support aspartame ban initiative
of Roger Williams, MP: Murray 2006.10.16

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1306
ban aspartame speech, Roger Williams MP, UK Parliament 2005.12.14:
www.TheyWorkForYou.com: Murray 2006.02.20

www.additivesout.org.uk Additives Survivors' Network (UK)
additivesout@...
Geoff Brewer geoffbrewer@...
63 Downlands Road, DEVIZES, Wiltshire, SN10 5EF UK
Joanna Clarke BSc. AIBMS MIBiol. CBiol.
asn@...
Scottish Co-ordinator Additives Survivors' Network
35 Hamilton Drive, GLASGOW, G12 8DW

http://members.tripod.com/~mission_possible/scotland_branch.html
Alan Law webmaster@mission_possible_mail.zzn.com
Thurso, Caithness KW14 7SH United Kingdom

http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/ an excellent group
These web pages provide:
independent information about the effects of food on behaviour,
health and learning ability in both children and adults.
support for families using a low-chemical elimination diet free of
additives, low in salicylates, amines and flavour enhancers (FAILSAFE)
for health, behaviour and learning problems.
Food Intolerance Network, Sue Dengate sdengate@...
http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/biodata.htm


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1094
the 11% methanol component of aspartame becomes formaldehyde,
now ruled a carcinogen by WHO International Agency
for Research on Cancer: Murray 2004.06.16

"Survey of aspartame studies: correlation of outcome and funding
sources," 1998, unpublished: http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html
Walton found 166 separate published studies in the peer reviewed
medical literature, which had relevance for questions of human safety.
The 74 studies funded by industry all (100 %) attested to aspartame's
safety, whereas of the 92 non-industry funded studies, 84 (91 %)
identified a problem. Six of the seven non-industry funded studies
that were favorable to aspartame safety were from the FDA, which
has a public record that shows a strong pro-industry bias.
Ralph G. Walton, MD, Prof. of Clinical Psychology, Northeastern Ohio
Universities, College of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, Youngstown,
OH 44501, Chairman, The Center for Behavioral Medicine,
Northside Medical Center, 500 Gypsy Lane, P.O. Box 240
Youngstown, OH 44501 330-740-3621 rwalton193@...
http://www.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/Psychiatry/walton.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/805
Ive: UK Daily Mirror Magazine: aspartame toxicity:
Murray 2002.02.18

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1271
combining aspartame and quinoline yellow, or MSG and brilliant blue,
harms nerve cells, eminent C. Vyvyan Howard et al, 2005
education.guardian.co.uk, Felicity Lawrence: Murray 2005.12.21

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1277
50% UK baby food is now organic -- aspartame or MSG
with food dyes harm nerve cells, CV Howard 3 year study
funded by Lizzy Vann, CEO, Organix Brands,
Children's Food Advisory Service: Murray 2006.01.13


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1279
all three aspartame metabolites harm human erythrocyte [red blood cell]
membrane enzyme activity, KH Schulpis et al, two studies in 2005,
Athens, Greece, 2005.12.14: 2004 research review, RL Blaylock:
Murray 2006.01.14

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1366
toxicity in rat brains from aspartame, Vences-Mejia A, Espinosa-Aguirre JJ et al
2006 Aug: Murray 2006.09.06

aspartame rat brain toxicity re cytochrome P450 enzymes, expecially
CYP2E1, Vences-Mejia A, Espinosa-Aguirre JJ et al, 2006 Aug,
Hum Exp Toxicol: relevant abstracts re formaldehyde from methanol
in alcohol drinks: Murray 2006.09.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1373


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1369
Bristol, Connecticut, schools join state program to limit artificial
sweeteners, sugar, fats for 8800 students, Johnny J Burnham, The Bristol
Press: Murray 2006.09.22

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1341
Connecticut bans artificial sweeteners in schools, Nancy Barnes,
New Milford Times: Murray 2006.05.25

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1353
carcinogenic effect of inhaled formaldehyde, Federal Institute of Risk
Assessment, Germany -- same safe level as for Canada:
Murray 2006.06.02

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1352
Home sickness -- indoor air often worse, as our homes seal in pollutants
[one is formaldehyde, also from the 11% methanol part of aspartame],
Megan Gillis, WinnipegSun.com: Murray 2006.06.01


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1143
methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) disposition: Bouchard M
et al, full plain text, 2001: substantial sources are
degradation of fruit pectins, liquors, aspartame, smoke:
Murray 2005.04.02

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1349
NIH NLM ToxNet HSDB Hazardous Substances Data Bank
inadequate re aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid):
Murray 2006.08.19

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/f?./temp/~HwoSfJ:1
HSDB Hazardous Substances Data Bank: Aspartame

ASPARTAME CASRN: 22839-47-0
METHANOL CASRN: 67-56-1
FORMALDEHYDE CASRN: 50-00-0
FORMIC ACID CASRN: 64-18-6

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1307
formaldehyde from 11% methanol part of aspartame or from red wine
causes same toxicity (hangover) harm: Murray 2006.05.24

Dark wines and liquors, as well as aspartame, provide
similar levels of methanol, above 120 mg daily, for
long-term heavy users, 2 L daily, about 6 cans.

Within hours, methanol is inevitably largely turned into formaldehyde,
and thence largely into formic acid -- the major causes of the dreaded
symptoms of "next morning" hangover.

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol -- 1,120 mg aspartame
in 2 L diet soda, almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg
methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of the methanol is turned
into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde, 37 mg,
is 18.5 times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in
drinking water, 2.0 mg in 2 L average daily drinking water.

Any unsuspected source of methanol, which the body always quickly
and largely turns into formaldehyde and then formic acid, must be
monitored, especially for high responsibility occupations, often with
night shifts, such as pilots and nuclear reactor operators.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1052
DMDC: Dimethyl dicarbonate 200mg/L in drinks adds methanol 98 mg/L
( becomes formaldehyde in body ): EU Scientific Committee on Foods
2001.07.12: Murray 2004.01.22

http://www.HolisticMed.com/aspartame mgold@...
Aspartame Toxicity Information Center Mark D. Gold
12 East Side Drive #2-18 Concord, NH 03301 603-225-2100

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
"Scientific Abuse in Aspartame Research"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1371
Russell L. Blaylock, MD discusses MSG, aspartame, excitotoxins
with Mike Adams: Murray 2006.09.27

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1372
Mike Adams interviews Randall Fitzgerald on "The Hundred Year Lie:
How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health" 2006.06.21:
Murray 2006.09.28
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