from the Sentinel-News in Northern Utah.
We live in violent times. Americans are seven times more likely to die of homicide and twenty times more likely to die from shooting than people in other developed countries.1 Between 1984 and 1994, the number of young murderers under age eighteen in the U.S. increased threefold.2-4
In the 1990s, a new form of deadly violence raised its head in America. The first mass school slaying occurred in 1992 when Wayne Lo killed a student and a professor at a remote school in Massachusetts. This act set the stage for an escalating pattern of chilling destruction aimed at students and carried out by students, violence that increases every year. From the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado to the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, Americans are desperately searching for answers.
In his book Confronting Violence: Answers to Questions About the Epidemic Destroying America’s Homes and Communities, George Gellert, (1997), MD, discusses “tested strategies to prevent violent crime” without providing any evidence that any of these strategies—electronic tracking, hotlines, education, and training―have actually worked. In fact, it is obvious that they have not.5
The disturbing tendencies we see today contrast strongly with Dr. Weston Price’s descriptions of harmonious, well-nourished primitive cultures—from smiling, joyful South Sea Islanders to highly spiritual Gaelic fisherfolk to Swiss villagers celebrating “one for all and all for one” during their summer festivals.6 Likewise, Dr. Francis Pottenger described peaceful, harmonious behavior among well-nourished cats. Both cats and humans degenerated into disharmonious behavior patterns with the change to foods devitalized by heat and processing.7
Modern commentators are blind to the solution, a solution that is in plain sight: clearly defining good nutrition and putting it back into the mouths of our children, starting before they are even conceived. . . because food is information and that information directly affects the emotions, the nervous system, the brain, and behavior.
FAT-SOLUBLE VITAMINS
The brain and nervous system require specific nutrients to function properly, and the evidence is overwhelming that nutrient deficiencies can lead to aggression and violent behavior. Let’s start with the fat-soluble vitamins, vitamins A, D3, and K2, so important in the diets of primitive peoples.
Preformed vitamin A, called retinoic acid, is critical to brain development. Receptors in the amygdala, hippocampus, and other paralimbic brain regions suggest that vitamin A signaling plays a vital role in cognitive function.8 When vitamin A is lacking during gestation, as it is for most mothers in our fat-phobic society, children may be set up for abnormal behavior patterns later in life.
In animals, vitamin A deficiency results in problems with spatial learning and memory. Vitamin A deficiency may lead to dopamine receptor hypo-activity and the typical symptoms of schizophrenia, such as flat affect, apathy and lack of insight, as well as hallucinations and delusions. 9 Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and serious brain disorder. People with schizophrenia hear voices and believe people are controlling them.10
Recent studies from the U.K. show that low levels of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) are associated with increased risk of depression and panic. Researchers from the Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, California, defined the role of vitamin D in neurological health, pointing out the wide distribution of vitamin D throughout the brain. The vitamin affects portions of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as motor control.11
Vitamin D is very much involved in production of serotonin, the molecule of willpower, and delayed gratification. Decreased serotonin activity can lead to an inability to create and act on well-formed plans.12
There are many vitamin D receptors in the brain. Bright light going through the eyes increases serotonin production―sunglasses block this effect―and sunscreen blocks the vitamin D formation in the skin.13
Studies with rats show that the production of serotonin is directly related to duration of bright sunlight. Sunbathing and exposure to bright light during the day can have a similar effect to antidepressants and, of course, are far safer. Other ways to boost serotonin in the dark of winter are exercise, massage and happy memories,14 and, of course, vitamin D-rich food.
Calcitriol, the hormonally active form of vitamin D, accumulates in the adrenals, and this stimulates the production of the gene for tyrosine hydroxylase, which is involved in serotonin production. Serotonin synthesis is thought to be dependent on the duration of light exposure the previous summer.15
Less is known about the correlation between vitamin K2 status and behavior. However, research has shown that vitamin K2 is involved in the biochemistry of nervous tissue and is needed for the formation of myelin.16,17 Vitamin K2 contributes to the biological activation of proteins Gas6, which are involved in many cellular functions such as cell growth, survival, and apoptosis. In the brain, vitamin K2 also participates in the synthesis of sphingolipids, an important lipid present in high concentrations in brain cell membranes. Vitamin K2 can affect psychomotor behavior and cognition.18 Weston Price cured a child of seizures with high-vitamin butter oil, rich in vitamin K2.19
All these vitamins were consumed in very high levels in primitive diets.19 Today, due to disastrous dietary advice, most people avoid the dietary sources of these critical nutrients—egg yolks, butter, organ meats, meat fats, goose and chicken liver, cod liver oil, fish eggs and oily fish, and some fermented foods like sauerkraut.20
