Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food (54 page)

What about tests under laboratory conditions? Researchers have not been slow to try omega-3 therapy in controlled trials. In one celebrated study, Harvard researchers gave two groups of hospitalized depressed patients diets that were high in omega-3 oils and omega-6 oils, respectively. The omega-3 group had such dramatic improvement that, after three months, the scientists stopped the experiment and allowed the omega-6 group to benefit from the therapy.
⁴¹¹
Many other studies have confirmed the importance of boosting omega-3 consumption and driving omega-6 down.
⁴¹²

Micronutrient Connection
—Researchers have carried out many studies to find some “magic bullet” vitamin pill for depression. They did not find the magic bullet, but their labors did establish the vital role that micronutrients play in brain health. They found that people who had low micronutrient intakes were more likely to be depressed. The closest associations were with folate and vitamins B1, B2, C, and B12.
⁴¹³

Blood Sugar Control Connection
—A high-glycemic diet provokes a switchback of blood sugar, leading to abnormal lows of sugar in the blood. This state of hypoglycemia gives rise to the so-called “sugar blues.”

Lifestyle Connection
—Lack of sunshine affects mood. For example, the depressive condition known as SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is most common in areas with long winter nights, like Alaska, Finland, and Sweden.
⁴¹⁴
Sunlight even helps the body clock stay synchronized. Exercise, particularly with depressed people, helps lift them out of their moodiness.
⁴¹⁵
The way we live today drives more and more people into depression. Undoubtedly, the dysfunctional structure of society has a great deal to answer for. Reappraise your personal situation and see if you can restructure your life to relieve unnecessary subconscious (and conscious) distress.

There are still many areas where we can take control for ourselves. In particular, follow the Savanna Model in matters of nutrition and lifestyle. The most important factor is to get omega fatty acids in balance, especially by stoking up on omega-3 oils and eliminating omega-6 oils. Also, increase your consumption of plant food, which is rich in micronutrients. Finally, follow a low-glycemic diet. Remember our tropical ancestry: we are creatures who need sunlight. If you cannot obtain it naturally, use a sun-bed or a light box. Think about the greater degree of social connectedness of our forager band—people who have this in their modern lives are much less likely to suffer depression. Finally, the savanna life designed our bodies on the assumption that physical activity is a constant factor in our daily lives and this helps too.

Schizophrenia

The principal signs of schizophrenia are delusions, hallucinations, incoherent thought processes, deficient feelings, and a withdrawal from reality. The incidence of this disease rose sharply during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. We have no evidence that forager societies suffered the disease at all, although this is possible. Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence that a lifestyle mismatch with our naturally adapted origins is greatly responsible. Generally, people in poorer countries fare better. For example, remission rates in India after two years of treatment were 54%, while they were only 3% in United States.
⁴¹⁶
According to the World Health Organization, “This undoubtedly means that environment plays a crucial role as an outcome determinant in schizophrenia.”
⁴¹⁷

Essential Fatty Acid Connection
—Many studies and trials show that when patients consume a normalized intake of essential fatty acids, their schizophrenia is improved. That is, consumption of omega-3 oils is increased and omega-6 oils are sharply reduced to bring them into balance.
⁴¹⁸
One of the fish oils, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), seems to play a crucial role.
⁴¹⁹
Normally, the body can make EPA from an omega-3 oil of vegetable origin, but it is possible that some schizophrenic bodies have difficulty doing so. Other studies suggest that a high consumption of animal fats (which block essential fatty acids from working properly) worsen symptoms.
⁴²⁰

Sugar Connection
—An analysis found links between sugar intake and schizophrenia. It found that “a higher national intake of refined sugar and dairy products predicted a worse two-year outcome of schizophrenia.”
⁴²¹

Antinutrient and Allergen Connection
—A number of studies suggest a link between schizophrenia and the consumption of grains.
⁴²²
Furthermore, the incidence of schizophrenia is 30 times greater in patients with celiac disease (gluten allergy).
⁴²³
The same analysis that found links with sugar intake also found connections with dairy intake.
⁴²⁴
Similarly, a milk-free diet yields much quicker remission.
⁴²⁵

The World Health Organization thinks that environment plays a “crucial role” in the remission of schizophrenia, but there is a great deal more to be studied on just what factors make a difference. Certainly social factors, especially those arrangements of work, family, and society that conform to the Savanna Model, are helpful. In dietary terms, paying attention to the essential fatty acid profile is the most important. Keeping to the low-glycemic diet, which automatically keeps sugar at bay, is also a sensible thing to do. Food allergens, like those from grain and dairy, also play a role, but more research is needed. Of course, grains and dairy are best omitted from the diet anyway.

Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinsonism was first described in 1817 by the British physician James Parkinson. He was the first to categorize a particular variety of palsy called “shaking palsy,” a condition brought about by neuron degeneration in a brain region called the substantia nigra. When this happens, they stop producing the neurotransmitter dopamine. The adjacent region of the brain, responsible for masterminding movement, cannot function properly without dopamine. The result is a variety of symptoms of which uncontrollable tremors are the earliest and most visible. Although the conventional treatment uses drugs such as L-dopa, many studies show that there are strong lifestyle risk factors linked to Parkinson’s disease.

Allergen Connection
—A number of studies point to dairy consumption as a major risk factor.
⁴²⁶
The Honolulu Heart Program found that those who consumed more than 16 ounces of milk each day were 2.3 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those who didn’t drink any milk.
⁴²⁷

Low Plant Food Connection
—Low intakes of folate and other micronutrients allow homocysteine to cause damage in the brain. High homocysteine levels are a strong risk factor for developing Parkinson’s.
⁴²⁸
Findings from the Honolulu Heart Program found that infrequent bowel movements lead to increased risk of Parkinson’s. Those with fewer than one bowel movement per day had 2.7 times the risk of those with one bowel movement per day and four times the risk of those who had two bowel movements per day.
⁴²⁹
What do we make of this? Earlier, we highlighted the hundreds of subtle ways in which the bowel, and its contents, have a powerful influence on the body’s health. Here we have another, quite unintuitive example. Who would have thought that a mucky bowel could affect dopamine levels in the brain?

Bad Fat Connection
—Many studies conclude that diets high in animal fat are associated with a substantial increase in risk for Parkinson’s disease.
⁴³⁰

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disease, and lifestyle certainly has something to do with it. All the evidence points to departures from the Savanna Model as being risk factors. So, be sure you have a voluminous non-starchy plant food intake and avoid dairy and saturated fat. You do not have to give up all pleasures, though—studies suggest that caffeine is all right, even beneficial.
⁴³¹
Parkinson’s is a progressive disease, so if you already have it, then you have no time to lose—go on the Savanna Model program straight away.

Autism

The term
autism
was first used by the psychiatrist Leo Kanner in the 1940s to describe children who appeared to be excessively withdrawn and self-preoccupied. The incidence of autism has risen from about 1 in 10,000 individuals in the 1970s to 1 in 200 now.
⁴³²
It is four times more common in boys. Media scares have condemned vaccinations and mercury poisoning, but the evidence for this connection is slight. On the other hand, many studies show strong connections with more everyday lifestyle factors. Dairy products, particularly the protein casein, are a high risk factor.
⁴³³
Grains, notably the allergen gluten, are another.
⁴³⁴
“Bad” bacteria in an unhealthy colon release toxins that favor autism.
⁴³⁵

There is also evidence of a phenomenon that it is difficult to do anything about. Male fetuses receive strong doses of testosterone in the womb, which has the purpose of turning the fetus into a boy. Among other things, it wires the brain with male circuitry. Heavier doses of testosterone increase the risk of autism to the point where some researchers suggest that some autistic brains are simply “extreme” male brains.
⁴³⁶
Even if this is true for some autistic boys, it cannot be true for girls at all. So, an autistic child will always do better on the Savanna Model and, in particular, by eliminating dairy and grains.

Achieving Brain Health

The brain is a living organ, throbbing with life, just like any other vital organ in the body. Moreover, it is a fantastically complex, three-dimensional network of microcircuits carrying out billions of operations per second. It is continuously processing information from the outside world and, using this data, calculating and directing our bodies to function in a challenging environment. Our instincts, reflexes, emotions, and moods are the puppet strings by which it directs us.

Already the brain is under enormous strain. Our homeland environment hardwired it for and installed the software for optimum functionality on the savannas of east Africa. We now live lives that are strongly at variance with this environment. The brain has to cope with the conflicts between hardwired reflexes and the restraining calculations necessary for today’s world. One example is when the male aggression reflex has to be subordinated to the restraining influence of “civilized” behavior. It does not always succeed when we consider how phenomena like road rage can overtake the most mild-mannered driver. Freud began his career by analyzing hysterical bourgeois women. He put their hysteria down to the subconscious conflict between hardwired sexual feelings and the repression imposed by their “respectable” middle-class culture. Hysteria and road rage are just extreme examples of the conflicts that the brain is resolving many times a second. As Freud observed, the vast majority of these conflicts are taking place in our subconscious. Only occasionally does the fallout surface as a psychiatric problem.

That is what happens when the brain is functioning normally. It is already a bleak picture. But we add to the difficulty by throwing a screwdriver into the workings of the brain. In industrial societies, we feed the brain badly, deprive it of vital nutrients, encourage sickening inflammation, poison it with natural toxins, and irritate it with allergens. It is not surprising that some brains have a “brainstorm” and fail to function properly.

The lesson is that we must attempt to align our lifestyles again with the Savanna Model. We need the sunshine and the physical activity. We need to nourish the brain with the correct fatty acid profile and an abundance of micronutrients from plants. We need to avoid sabotaging brain health by consuming plant poisons, notably those in grains and legumes. We should avoid the allergens contained in grains, legumes, and dairy products. We must avoid inflaming the brain (and also giving ourselves wild mood swings) with a high-glycemic diet. In other words, follow the Owner’s Manual for optimum brain health.

OBESITY AND DIABETES

Obesity and diabetes, as we will see, are really two sides of the same coin. Everything we know about our prehistoric ancestors is that they were lean and did not suffer from diabetes. Most of the time, they were slightly hungry and we can imagine why: getting food required work. They were constantly balancing the inconvenience of obtaining food with the satisfaction of consuming it. If they finished lunch hungry, they had a choice. Go off for an hour or two and find more food or have a siesta during the heat of the day. Thus, there was an automatic mechanism controlling the intake of food. You had to really want the food to go to the effort of getting it.