THE EDITOR, Sir:
CRIME AND violence are the most widely discussed topics today particularly in relation to socio-economic factors. The nutritional relationship with criminal violence also deserves serious examination.
Anti-social or aggressive behaviour is usually caused by unbalanced and chaotic dietary habits leading to impaired health and judgment.
Unfortunately, regardless of what we might think about the perpetrators of crime, we never imagine them as having a proper meal. Yet their abnormal behaviour is influenced by the chemical reactions of their food choices (meals).
Simply put, one's behaviour is influenced by the chemical reactions of his food choices. Our brain is constantly utilising specific nutrients to determine how we think, focus and reason.
Eating right could be one of the world's best kept secrets both in terms of criminology and biologically. It is currently thought that all mental and other activity in the brain occurs as a result of very specific chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) acting at particular sites.
NEUROTRANSMITTERS
These neurotransmitters are vital to brain function. In recent years, it has become apparent that all kinds of things can alter these chemicals and this has opened a new window to the whole subject of psychiatric illness and treatments.
Most drugs that modify behaviour do so by changing the amounts of activity of particular neurotransmitters present in the brain. If a single food constituent is shown to cause similar changes in the release or reactions of one of these neurotransmitters, there is every reason to expect that the nutrient will also be able to influence behaviour or to modify other processes controlled by the brain.
Evidence continues to accumulate that nutrition can alter behaviour. Eating correctly can help to maximise not only health but also enable one to control and not be controlled by these behaviours.
Just as physical fitness depends upon a keen respect for health which is also dependent on the food you eat, food can potently influence brain activity - how we speak, feel love, and learn to hate and express creativity.
There is no doubt that the food we eat influences our minds, bodies and behaviour. In essence, you are what you eat and think.
In fact, food may be the most powerful drug you will ever encounter because it causes dramatic changes biologically.
SIGNIFICANT ROLE
Nutritional psychiatry can be defined as those areas of mental disturbance that are amenable to nutritional treatment. Since our brain function depends on the correct balance of nutrients reaching it, our diet plays a significant role in mental conditions.
Our overall behaviour, memory and moods are controlled by the brain and scientists have confirmed that in humans, the first organ to suffer from temporary malnutrition is the brain. Because of its amazing complexity, the human brain remains shrouded in mystery.
Notwithstanding the tremendous energy required by the brain, it is affected by what we eat.
Although violence is not officially considered a mental illness, some people have a tendency to use violence to try and solve the problems of daily life.
Often criminals are more active, creative, common sensical than ordinary people. However, they lack a positive holistic view of life and in many cases constructive outlets for their excess energy. On the other hand, many other criminals and violent perpetrators are sick physically, mentally and emotionally.
Eating right can offer biological and biochemical improvement from which psychological improvement will follow. The idea that food balance and composition could have had such a profound effect on brain function would have seemed like a fairy tale fifty years ago.
A nutritional perspective - a different view, a different reality - may be 'food for thought' in addressing antisocial and aggressive behaviour problems.
I am, etc.,
VANCE LANNAMAN,
N.M.D. (Dr.)
nuturaldoc@cwjamaica.com
Kingston, Jamaica
