Nutrition and Behavior

by Russell Blaylock, MD

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behavior health memory obesity depression disease paranoia anxiety violence psychosis suicide agitation

neurosis weakness death

Talks about nutrition and the effect on behavior. Primarily brain function. This is a wide open field. We are finding that nutrition controls whether genes are on or off.

You can affect a child early in life and it will affect it from then on. Either negatively or positively.

The brain uses a tremendous amount of energy. And it's metabolism never rests or slows down very much. This creates a lot of free radicals. Oxidizing the brain. All neurological conditions are related to this. Alzheimers, parkinsons disease, leu gerigs disease. This process alters the DNA. The effects are not uniform.

The brain consumes 20% of all the oxygen and 25% of all the glucose but is only 2% of the body weight.

All components of the brain are being constantly replaced.

What they are finding is that the omega-3 and dha are being replaced within 2 weeks. So if you are deficient for 2 weeks you will change the structure of your brain and it will not function properly.

First connection between diet and behavior was by George M. Gould M.D. in 1910

In 1935 - recognized that hypoglycemia could imitate anxiety, neurosis, hysteria, neurasthenia and even psychosis

1973 - Dr. Wendel and Beede found 74% incidence of hypoglycemia with anxiety associated with schizophrenia

They are seeing a strong connection between sugar metabolism in the brain and psychological conditions. 60% of members of families with hyperactive children have diabetes, obesity or alcoholism - all sugar consumption problems.

75% of all prisoners were hyperactive as children. This programmed them to be criminals later in life.

Why would sugar have such an effect?

When sugar is in excess it produces an excess insulin release. If insulin release is excessive, you get hypoglycemia. That is the blood sugar falls. When the blood sugar falls it does two things. 1. It tries to get your blood sugar back up. So it stimulates the adrenal gland to release two hormones. Epiniphrine and Norepenephrine. These are the hormones that make you jittery when your blood sugar falls. When the brain becomes hypoglycemic it releases one of its neurotransmitters called glutamate. Glutamate is the primary neurotransmitter for excitability. The epiniphrine and norepinephrin and glutamate are creating a state of hyperactivity.

Effect of crime and nutrition

Probation violations - Found that the prisoners who stayed on a high sugar, MSG, Aspartame, colorings, preservatives. 56% of them ended up violated their probation. Only 8% did who were on a healthy diet.

Narcotic Abuse - 47% who stayed on a bad diet continued using narcotics. 13% of those who had the healthy diet continued using narcotics.

They also found that there was a dramatic reduction in suicide.

 

Alabama prison system

found 42% reduction in criminal events

and 61% reduction in antisocial behavior

Dr. Blaylock gives a personal example of a guy named Raymond who got in a heated argument with his girlfriend about nothing. He put a gun to his girlfriend's head and she pushed it away. It shot through her hand. She didn't press charges but he was arrested for firing a weapon within city limits.

Raymond's history

age 4 - weakness ( he would get weak from time to time and his mother would give him some sugar to get him going again)

age 13 - radical mood swings ( violent outbursts and falling grades: that would correlate with his falling blood sugar)

age 23 - attempts murder on his girlfriend

diet - junk foods donuts, pastries, candy and coffee.

They found when they changed his diet he didn't break his parole or commit any more acts of violence.

Study of prisons in five different states

found that adult felons were deficient in Mg, Zinc, Folate or B6

In all the states, they found that the more violent the prisoner the more deficient they are. 5-9 deficiencies

 

Oklahoma Childrens center

found that a change in diet caused a 43% reduction in serious crime.

Brain wave abnormalities (EEG) and criminals

They went from 14 to 2 abnormalities for those with serious offenses with supplementation

In one child it went from 6 to 0 abnormalities with supplementation.

They found that even marginal deficiencies could cause criminal tendencies to surface.

 

Selenium - has a lot to do with brain function

deficiencies cause depression and confusion

mood improves when supplemented

 

Sugar Consumption and behavior

1900 - Americans consumed 4 lbs of sugar a year.

Average now is 129 lbs a year. 2500% increase

57% comes from processed foods.

Sugar intake is directly related to crimianal activity and antisocial behavior.

Leading sources are fruit juices and sodas.

Since 1974 soda consumption has doubled

Teenagers are drinking 54 teaspoons a day just from soda. Nutritionist say the limit should be 10 teaspoons a day.

 

Adults have increased drinking soda too. Seniors an even higher percentage.

 

When you consume a lot of sugar, it dramatically increases the free radical generation in your brain. It makes every cell in your body age much faster.

If you consume a lot of sugar, you have 6x the chance of getting alzheimers.

It is estimated that 50 percent of the population has reactive-hypoglycemia. Your blood sugar will fall dramatically because of an oversecretion of insulin. It gets so low, you start getting these symptoms of being anxious, angry, trembly, weak. Where you feel you just have to hurry up and eat something with sugar in it. Some people do pass out. And some people do die from reactive-hypoglycemia

The effects of high sugar results in brain damage.

 

Hypoglycemia and Aggression

Strong connection between alcohol abuse, hypoglycemia and criminal behavior.

97% of alcoholics are hypoglycemic vs 18% for controls.

when hypoglycemia is treated: 71% of alcoholics attain sobriety. Alcoholics Anonymous best rate is only 25%. Correcting one condition corrected another condition.

If you look at the most violent criminals in prison. Most of them are hypoglycemic and most of them are alcohol abusers. When these violent criminals drink alcohol, their blood sugar falls tremendously. They are getting a hyper-reactive effect from the alcohol. A patient came into his practice and lost half of his vision in his visula field. He couldn't see anything on one side. What happened is, he was drinking, his blood sugar fell, it fell so low he went into a coma and he had a stroke on one side of his brain in the visual portion of his brain. And that happens and young people don't know that can happen. But it's not that uncommen. You can have seizures and you can die durring these spells.

In alcoholics, alcohol is the source of tremendous energy.

FBI statistics, Most crime is connected to alcohol, Auto accidents and road rage are too.

 

And if you already have temporal lobe dysfunction and become hypoglycemic, you can become enraged. These are the people who have road rage. Or pick up a knife out of the blue for things that are insignificant.

Dr. Blaylock worked in an emergency room for many years and he found that the most violent people were the alcoholics. It would take everybody in the emergency room to hold them down. They were like enraged animals. It is not a conscious act. It's caused by the blood sugar or nutrient problem. If I were to put an electrode in your brain at the exact spot where this is taking place. You would attack the person closest to you. And you would try to kill them. And there is nothing you could do to stop it. This is the effect nutrition can have.

Study on a group of indians in Peru. Found that 55% were hypoglycemic. This one tribe are the most violent people on earth.

Sugar is not the only thing that can make you hypoglycemic. Aspartame and Monosodium glutamate are both powerful stimulants of insulin release from the pancreas. They will both induce hypoglycemia.

One of the big complaints of Aspartame is that it causes weight gain. Everybody drinking it is drinking it because they think that they will lose weight. It causes weight gain in a lot of people because it causes hypoglycemia and you tend to eat and snack, and nibble. Monosodium glutamate, does the same thing. Food Manufactures know this, that's why they put so much MSG in Food. Because it makes you hungry and you eat more of their food.

Hypoglycemia and Aggression

Aspartame and MSG both stimulate insulin release from the pancreas and induce hypoglycemia

MSG induces intense rage if you micro inject it into the hypothalamus. You can make a mouse attack a cat. And it can even kill the cat.

If you are hypoglycemic and then consume MSG, the induced excitoxcity is greatly magnified. This happens in society all the time. If you're drinking a soda and nibbling on some Doritos. Which are really high in MSG, that's why they taste so good. The glutamate level in your blood starts to rise. The glutamate stimulates insulin release, the sugar stimulates insulin release, your blood falls. And in susceptible people, which is a lot of people, you can go into severe rage. And of course excitotoxicity destroys brain cells.

Several amino acids can cause hypoglycemia too. Ex. Taurine, glutamine, etc. This can kill babies. This is a recognized reason for sudden death. And it can kill adults.

 

Finnish Study 1983

studied violent offenders in prison

Found that implusively violent offenders blood suger fell suddenly and rose quickly after given sugar.

And the antisocial offender (shoplifter) not necessarily violent, blood sugar would drop suddenly but then had a slow rise.

And we know that it is changes in blood sugar that cause alterations in brain function. There were cases in which we found that they became kleptomaniacs because of high sugar intake.

Study

The highest consumers of sugar caused kids to not be able to pay attention and bounce off the walls. And these children usually get put on Ritalin.

 
1986 study

gave kids equivalent sugar of a can of coke. Decline in mental performance in 30 minutes. And significant decline after an hour. (made 2x as many mistakes)

Harmful effect usually subsided after an hour and a half.

We can create killer mice just by lowering seratonin levels

Sugar consumption has a lot to do with how well you can think.

 

Research

Judith Wurtman found a strong correlation between sugar intake, behavior and brain serotonin levels. Well SSRI regulate brain function and make your serotonin levels go up. Unfortunately, in some people it will make serotonin levels go down. These people will commit suicide or commit murder. All of the kids in the school shootings were taking SSRI's medication, everyone of them. So you are creating child killers by lowering seratonin inadvertantly, thinking you were going to raise it. Well, we know that seratonin levels are correlated with carbohydrate levels.

 

Potatoes is a very powerful hypoglycemic. How many of you sit around eating potato chips. This may be why the Irish are so mean sometimes.

 

Eggar and Carter studied 76 hyperactive children who were paced on a low carbohydrate diet, which also eliminated food dyes.

82% children improved on diet and 28% returned to normal

Highest reaction

Yellow dye #5

Sodium benzoate

Most reactive Foods

Soybeans 73%

Cow's Milk 68%

Chocolate 59%

 

Everybody is consuming soybeans. Babies and mothers

 

When serotonin is low you have higher suicide, higher depression. Serotonin is calming.

 

Corn is very low in the amino acid that is turned into seratonin. This amino acid is called tryptophan. If you are eating a diet high in corn, your body will have a harder time creating serotonin. And be likely to suffer from depression and suicidal tendencies.

Tyrosine has a lot to do with attention and stress. Increasing tyrosine reduces stress.

Vitamins has a lot to do with these factors as well. Niacin has been known to have a lot to do with mental illness.

There is a niacin responsive form of schizophrenia

 

Nutrients and Behavior: Vitamins

Vitamin C,D,F,K,A,B and carotenoid - all associated with behavioral manifestations when deficient, either in combination or alone

B1 deficiency

Insomnia, depression, memory failure, chronic fatigue and personality change

 

 

If you eat a lot of carbohydrates, It depletes your vitamin B1. That's how you end up with a thiamine deficiency in the U.S. And it's closely connected to magnesium deficiency.

 

National Survey of Adolescents (U.S)

60% deficient in iron

57% in vitamin A

43% in vitamin C

39% in B1

30% in protein

16% in riboflavin

Being an advanced industrial nation, we sure have a lot of deficiencies.

 

Study of 1.1 million New York Public school children found a daily multivitamin significantly increased CAT scores when sugar was also removed from diet. And even better when they started removing dyes in the food. As they removed more and more dyes and things scores kept going up.

 

Deficiency in thiamin and riboflavin not only impaired neuropsychological function but could produce altered EEG patterns as well.

Study of 260 adults>60 found association with status of vitamin C, riboflavin, B-12, folic acid and concept learning. The brain is very sensitive to these deficiencies.

Now this is something that people don't think about and physicians know almost nothing about. That's food allergies affecting the brain. We call them brain allergies. A lot more people are allergic to foods than know it. You generally think if I'm allergic to a food it's going to give me stomach cramps or swell up or itch. But most food allergies have subtle symptoms and some have purely neurological symptoms.

 

Brain Allergies

Food allergies associated with neurological effects

Immune factors interact with the brain

Lethargy, stupor, disorientation, paranoia, delusions, halluciantions, agitation, rage, panic attacks, criminal behavior and even seizures.

 

When you eat these foods that you are allergic to, they enter your bloodstream as whole food components, which they're not supposed to do. But they do because there are holes in your GI tract. An intense immune reaction goes on in your blood and in your brain. Your brain releases toxic components including glutamate and that causes the dysfunction. And you can get all kinds of symptoms from immune system triggered reactions.

 

One of the interesting connections with food allergies is schizophrenia. I met a researcher from Sweden and he was doing some primary research in this which is very interesting. He found that 88% of schizophrenics are allergic to wheat, 60% to milk, 50% to corn, 100% were allergic to gliaden or gluten. Which is added to breads and pastries. What he did in a large psychiatric hospital he took one group and put them on a diet free of gliaden and gluten. Almost all them returned to completely normal. And as long as they stayed away from gliaden and gluten they were fine.

Food allergies often create cravings to the food that you are allergic to. I don't know how many people we've seen that have cloudy thinking. And you found a food allergy and you took them off the food and they just stunned at how much better they can think.

Over vaccination produces the same effects. Causing ADD, ADHD, Autism. When you vaccinate a kid you turn on the brains immune system. There is one major difference when you vaccinate. The immune system works for years. The kid has an inflamed brain that will not calm down. And this has been shown in every kind of study you can imagine.

There is a connection between Food Allergies and hypoglycemia. A lot of the people who have food allergies will become hypoglycemic.

 

Leading foods for allergy

Milk

Wheat

Corn Coffee Potatoes

Eggs

Peanuts

Potato

Soy

 

Most people don't know that Soy is a leading candidate for food allergy. And we have millions of people drinking it and eating as much soy as they possibly can, because they've been mislead into thinking it reduces breast and prostate cancer. Which there is no firm evidence it does, but there is solid evidence that it will make breast tumors grow faster.

Just the type of fat has a lot to do with learning. Animal fats interfere with the ability of the brain to remember. Omega-3 fats do just the opposite. They improve depression, memory, and thinking. And has even been shown to improve schizophrenia. Nerves and eyes use a lot of DHA. Eye diseases improve with omega-3's. Particularly the DHA component.

The Europeans have been putting DHA and arachidonic acid in formula for the babies. Babies who have this formula have better eyesight and are much brighter. Most of the baby manufactures are putting it in there. We knew about this twenty years ago.

 

Low level of DHA in neurons correlated with violent behavior.

Alcohol usage cause a lowering of DHA in the brain.

MSG injected into hypothalamus or amydala could produce rage

Lead is known to significantly increase violent behavior, suicide, and juvenile delinquency.

 

 

Even a slight increase in lead level produced horrendous levels of crime

 

 

Regular diet

Fat Ratio N-6 to N-3 (nutritionists say the ratio should be 1 to 20)

Carbohydrates

Proteins

Fruits/Vegetables

Antioxidant Intake:

Vitamins

Minerals

Flavonoids

Thiols

Hormones:

Testosterone

Estrogen

Thyroid

Artificial Estrogen is brain toxic. Natural estrogen is brain protective. So when you see these studies in the paper, that we saw increased stroke and increased dementia, they were using artificial estrogens which produce about half a dozen brain neurotoxins.

Thyroid function is very important. Even marginal disfunction in a pregnant mother can result in permanent deficiencies in the babies brain that are unrepairable.

Environmental toxins

aluminum

mercury

lead

cadmium

fluoride

MSG

Aspartame

Pesticides

Herbicides

Industrial solvents

food dyes

excessive vaccination [ by the way you shouldn’t get vaccinated because they put cancer virus in them. They’ve also been caught sterilizing people with the tetanus shot.]

 
Dr. Blaylock’s website

http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/