Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food (53 page)

Micronutrient deficiency ought to have given us the hint long ago that diet had profound effects on mental state. Often, mental disturbances are the first sign of deficiency.
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For example, irritability and a general malaise often precede scurvy, caused by vitamin C deficiency. However, remember that no nutrient works alone. Since they have to work together as a team, the tens of thousands of micronutrients essential to human health can only be obtained from plant food.

Many other substances actively undermine brain health. Plant poisons (antinutrients) in beans and grains, and allergens in dairy products, beans, and grains all affect mental health for the worse. Saturated fats obstruct essential fatty acids from being absorbed into the brain.
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The brain must receive a nourishing diet of essential fatty acids in the right ratio, proteins of the right kind, and a complex cocktail of micronutrients in order to remain healthy. Furthermore, we must not allow antinutrients and other compounds to disrupt its delicate circuitry. Let us look at how these factors, and other lifestyle factors, come together to generate a range of common brain disorders.

Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia

Dementia is any chronic deterioration of intellectual function that is severe enough to interfere with the activities of daily living. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is a progressive, physical disease of the brain, in which plaque builds up and causes inflammation of the neurons.
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Studies show that chemicals called cytokines create the plaques and then inflammation directly damages neurons. Symptoms include loss of memory, confusion, mood swings, and withdrawal.

Alzheimer’s disease has become much more common in the past 50 years. Since our genes have not changed, it must be lifestyle factors that are causing the increase. Indeed, immigrants to industrialized countries become just as vulnerable once they take up a Western lifestyle.
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Evidence linking Alzheimer’s disease and diet, either from population studies or from studies on large groups of people over many years, shows that Alzheimer’s disease is very much a result of modern lifestyle.

What Increases the Chances of Alzheimer’s Disease?

Too Much Fat and the Wrong Fats and Oils
—A high fat intake, including saturated and hydrogenated fats, is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
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Deficient omega-3 and omega-6 intake is another problem. Alzheimer’s patients have lower levels in their blood when compared to healthy people of the same age. Furthermore, autopsies of Alzheimer brains show low omega levels compared to healthy brains.
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High-Glycemic Diet
—High insulin levels stimulate a protein called tau, which tangles brain cells into Alzheimer knots.
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High blood sugar levels shrivel the hippocampus, the region of the brain where short-term memory is stored. The higher the blood sugar levels, the more it fogs memory.
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Long-term obesity by itself predicts an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.
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In addition, obesity is connected with damaging high insulin and high glucose levels.

High Consumption of Plant Toxins (Antinutrients)
—Soybean antinutrients in the form of tofu consumption can double the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
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Low Consumption of Plant Micronutrients
—High levels of homocysteine increase brain inflammation and are a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.
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A high intake of plant food micronutrients is required to clear homocysteine from the blood.

Lowering Your Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease

A life lived out of harmony with the Savanna Model sharply increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. A common thread has to do with inflammation—the same problems mentioned in regard to cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. It is not a surprise, therefore, that many of the factors that prevent inflammation also help you avoid Alzheimer’s disease.

The Right Fatty Acid Profile
—Our ancient ancestors had high intakes of omega-3 fatty acids from sources that included fish and shellfish from lakes and rivers.
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Both a high consumption of omega 3 oils, including fish and fish oils,
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and the absence of saturated fats help lower your risk.
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Low Energy Intake
—Fasting gives the body’s cells a “workout” similar to how physical exercise limbers up muscle cells. Brain neurons are strengthened, leading to reduced rates of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases.
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A low-calorie diet is also protective
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and it is important to avoid a high-glycemic diet.

High Plant Micronutrient Intake
—A high intake of plant nutrients is critical, because the micronutrients quench brain-destroying molecules like homocysteine and free radicals. Plant food micronutrients include folate, vitamin B12, and antioxidant flavonoids such as resveratrol, quercetin, catechins, and anthocyanins.
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Alzheimer’s patients have lower antioxidant levels in their blood than healthy people;
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they also have correspondingly higher levels of oxidized fats. Another study reported low levels of folate and vitamin B12 in the blood of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and found elevated levels of homocysteine.
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A vegetarian diet is less risky than a high-meat diet for Alzheimer’s disease.
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Physical Exercise
—Old people who walked two miles or more a day had only half the risk of Alzheimer’s as those who walked only 0.25 miles per day.
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Exercise reduces brain levels of amyloid, a sticky protein that clogs the brain in Alzheimer’s patients. It also boosts levels of hormones necessary for nerve cell production and increases blood flow to the brain. Our ancestors walked and ran several miles a day. We know that our bodies depend on it, and the brain does too.

Brain Exercise
—“Use it or lose it.” Brain scans show that when people use their brains in unusual ways, more blood flows into different neural regions and new connections form. To exercise the brain, do a new type of puzzle, learn to play chess, take a foreign language class, or solve a vexing problem at work.

Can Alzheimer’s be reversed? No one knows, but it can certainly be slowed down by adopting these helpful measures. There is even evidence that brain cells can regenerate.
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The fundamental lesson is that we have to live our lives in such a way as to avoid driving our brains into Alzheimer’s in the first place. Remember (while you can!) the maxim, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

ADHD is a brain disorder marked by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and an inability to sustain attention. It is most common in children and often, but not always, fades away in adulthood. There is a strong overlap with autism and dyslexia. Around 5% of children today are considered to suffer from ADHD, which means that a classroom of 25 to 30 children will have at least one who has ADHD. The “disorder” was first described at the beginning of the 20th century, but it only became routinely diagnosed in the 1980s. Since then, the number of children considered to suffer this condition is increasing sharply. What can be causing this sudden increase in cases?

Some of the usual culprits are suspected. Plant antinutrients such as gluten have been found guilty. Youngsters with full-blown gluten allergy (celiac disease) are at greater risk of ADHD.
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So, too, are those who consume a lot of sugar.
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Additives have also been linked to ADHD.
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A double-blind, placebo-controlled study in the United Kingdom found that additives put in sweets, biscuits, and carbonated drinks trigger behavioral changes in up to 25% of toddlers. A group of 1,873 three-year-olds were given juice containing artificial colorings and preservatives each day for a fortnight. (The additives in question were Tartrazine E102, Sunset Yellow E110, Carmoisine E122, Ponceau 4R E124, and Sodium Benzoate E211.) The scientists found that the artificial additives had a “substantial effect” on children’s tempers, concentration, sleeplessness and irritating interruptions.
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At the Appleton Alternative High School, in Wisconsin, the kids used to be out of control until 1997. Then, fast-food burgers, fries, and burritos in the cafeteria gave way to fresh fruit, fresh salad, and meats “prepared with old-fashioned recipes.” Good drinking water replaced carbonated beverages. “Grades are up, truancy is no longer a problem, arguments are rare, and teachers are able to spend their time teaching,” pronounced Principal LuAnn Coenen.
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Other studies find that ADHD sufferers have low essential fatty acids,
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particularly a poor omega 3 intake,
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and an imbalance of omega-6 oils.
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They have micronutrient deficiencies in minerals such as zinc, iron, and magnesium.
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There is also a fascinating insight concerning the mismatch with our natural inclinations. Children who spent the most time in “green” settings had reduced ADHD symptoms in a study by Frances Kuo on 400 children. In the study, activities were done inside, outside in areas without much greenery (such as parking lots), and in “greener” spots like parks, back gardens, and tree-lined streets. The kids showed fewer ADHD symptoms after spending time in nature. Rural or urban, coastal or inland, the findings held true for all regions of the country.
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ADHD is clearly a disorder of modern industrial societies. The science is clear on some points and quite incomplete on many others, but the message is clear: adapt your child’s life as closely as possible to the Savanna Model. Make sure that he or she avoids grains and dairy, remove sugar from the diet (be particularly ruthless about sugary soft drinks), and avoid processed foods with its artificial additives. Ensure that your child gets essential fatty acids, particularly omega-3 rich seafood, eliminate saturated fat and trans-fats, and keep omega-6 intake under tight control. Make sure he eats plentiful salads, fruits, and vegetables with their valuable cargo of micronutrients. Finally, get him away from the TV, computer console, and video games and into natural, green (savanna-like) surroundings.

Depression

In the past century, the prevalence of severe depression has increased dramatically, as much as 20-fold since 1945.
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Not only have the numbers risen, sufferers are getting younger, with more cases reported in adolescents and young adults.
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These increases are not due to better diagnosis—rather, there has been a genuine rise in the numbers of individuals suffering from depression.
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Explanations for the rise have included increased life stress and changing social networks. However, the weight of evidence points to changes in nutrition that have occurred simultaneously.

Essential Fatty Acid Connection
—There is a massive body of evidence that links low omega-3 oil intakes to manic depression, suicide, and post-natal depression. The incidence of major depression is nearly 60 times greater in New Zealand than in Japan. The New Zealanders’ average seafood consumption is 40 pounds per person per year; the Japanese average is nearly four times that much.

Post-natal depression is 50 times more common in countries with low levels of seafood consumption.
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Eskimos, when they abandon their traditional, omega-3-rich fish diet for industrial foods, suffer more depression.
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Another study on Finns, which compared high fish consumers with those who were not, had a similar result.
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