Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
June 2005
What's happening to our brains? Schoolchildren have lower test scores. Adults who graduated from school years ago find themselves with the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. Road rage and other forms of aggressive behavior are so common that they no longer have shock value. Jurors grapple with the term postpartum depression that defense attorneys hold out as an excuse for violence. Are we suffering from collective brain rot?
No period in history has been free from neuropsychiatric problems but the current trend toward increased dysfunctional behavior and poor performance might not simply be because we are more aware of the problem. We have blamed the social milieu, dissolution of the traditional family, occupational stress or intolerable crowding in our cities. Maybe we should look at our diet.
There's no lack of information about nutrition and the brain. Type those two words into any search engine and a wave of nearly 5 million entries will deluge your computer screen. Yet, among the hundreds of nutrients that allegedly affect brain function, only a few have strongly supportive research behind them.
The fact that life expectancy continues to increase disguises our underlying poor nutritional state. Dietary excess leads to type 2 diabetes and obesity-related hypertension; unwise choices result in omega-3 fatty acid deficiency. The first two are associated with diminished mental ability and the last with psychological disturbances.
The hallmark of type 2 diabetes is an abnormally high level of blood sugar, or glucose. Standardized tests of thinking ability show that persons with type 2 diabetes perform less well than those without the disease. Even in normal persons, elevated blood glucose alters brain function.
Hypertension is a silent disease whose damage is insidious and pervasive. It rises in lockstep with increases in body fat, even in young persons. Children with above-normal blood pressure do less well in tests of brain function.
How many fruits and vegetables have you eaten today? Among the many benefits of a high intake of fruits and vegetables is a brain that works better. When scientists in Boston tested middle-aged men they found that those who had blood levels of vitamins B6 and folic acid at the lower end of the normal range performed less well in a variety of mental tasks, including memory. Both vitamins are plentiful in fruits and vegetables.
Did your mom tell you that fish is brain food? She was right. Seafood, including shellfish, is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Known as good fats, omega-3 fatty acids make up a very large part of the structure of the brain and eye and play an important role in every other organ as well. Some anthropologists believe that human intelligence made a huge leap forward when our ancestors added fish to their diet, whereas intellect had barely budged in the preceding million or so years during which our species subsisted primarily on plants and land animals. Aggressive behavior, depression, post-partum depression, learning disorders and other neurologic problems are associated with a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids. Studies on laboratory animals tend to support these findings.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised when animal lovers insist that dolphins and whales are nearly as intelligent as we are. After all, they eat lots of seafood!
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.