CHOLESTEROL AND THE BRAIN
Focusing now on the nutrients needed for our brain, as well as our second brain, the main nutrient we find when we analyze the brain is cholesterol—something that is very bad for us, right? The brain contains more cholesterol than any other organ in the body. But we are not supposed to eat cholesterol, right? Young women are supposed to eat a lowfat diet, even when they’re pregnant, even though animal fats are our main source of cholesterol. And according to government guidelines, a child is supposed to be put on a lowfat diet when he or she turns two.
A recent study showed that women who ate lowfat dairy foods tended to be infertile, while women who ate high-fat dairy foods had no problem getting pregnant. And so the scientists said, if you can’t get pregnant eating lowfat dairy foods, eat the high-fat dairy foods until you get pregnant and then go back to the lowfat dairy foods during pregnancy! Doesn’t it seem rational to conclude that the same kind of diet needed to get pregnant is also needed for normal fetal development?
Mother’s milk contains a lot of cholesterol along with a special enzyme to ensure sure that all that cholesterol is absorbed–because babies can’t make all the cholesterol they need to properly form the brain and the second brain. The second brain has lots of cholesterol in it, too. The cells lining the gut need a lot of cholesterol to work properly. So, the number one way we have gone wrong is the endorsement of lowfat, vegan and vegetarian diets for women of childbearing age. And our children are paying the price!
FATS AND THE BRAIN
Now, if we look at the fats in the brain, the two major fats are saturated fat and a fat called arachidonic acid. But we’re not supposed to eat saturated fats, right? Yet saturated fats like butter, meat fats, lard, and coconut oil are the kinds of fats your brain wants and needs. And if you don’t eat those fats, your body says, “Well, give me the next best thing: refined carbohydrates.” Your body can make saturated fats out of refined carbohydrates. And that’s how people get cravings for refined carbohydrates—especially pregnant women and growing children. Unfortunately, eating refined carbohydrates robs the body of nutrients, while natural saturated animal fats provide some very important nutrients.
The other really interesting fat in the brain is arachidonic acid. Aracadonic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid that is found only in animal fats, such as in butter, egg yolks, organ meats and meat fats. Like saturated fats, arachidonic acid has been the victim of demonization. The popular author Barry Sears warned against eating butter, liver and other fatty foods, claiming that these foods caused inflammation. Many other health writers have picked up on this false information. If anything, arachidonic acid moderates inflammation.
What Barry Sears didn’t tell you was the fact that the brain is 11 percent arachidonic acid, much higher than the levels in our other organs. Arachidonic acid is really critical for brain function. The best source is butter, followed by liver.
Arachidonic acid is critical for the second brain also because it is needed for tight cell-to-cell junctures. Arachidonic acid ensures that your cells are nicely scooted up to each other, which gives you that good impermeable gut you need so that allergenic proteins don’t get through to the bloodstream.
VITAMIN A AND THE BRAIN
We’re going to move on to my favorite vitamin, one that should be at the top of the vitamin hit-parade; unfortunately, mainstream thought puts it at the bottom of the vitamin hit-parade. That vitamin is vitamin A. Dr. Price was really interested in vitamin A because he found that traditional cultures put a big emphasis on foods that were high in vitamin A. Liver was a sacred food in every culture that he studied, and liver is our richest source of vitamin A. Primitive peoples considered liver very important for pregnant women. The fat of grass-fed animals, especially butter, can be rich sources as long as the animals are outside eating green grass; so will egg yolks if they come from chickens raised outside.
By the way, the yolk is the most important part of the egg. You can throw the whites away if you want to. And the whites tend to be the allergenic part, not the yolks.
Another excellent source of vitamin A is cod liver oil.
Now, we’ve been hearing that vitamin A is toxic, and the government warns pregnant women against consuming liver, cod liver oil and other vitamin A-rich foods, claiming that vitamin A causes birth defects. The RDA for vitamin A is extremely low. As a result, we have a national deficiency in vitamin A.
Yet vitamin A is the main vitamin that you need while your baby is being formed! This is something we have learned from stem cell research. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells in the embryo, which turn into the differentiated cells of the heart, the brain, the stomach and so forth. The first organ to form in the fetus is the heart—stem cells get a signal and become heart cells. After the heart come the lungs, the brain, the kidneys, the skin and all the other organs.
By the sixth week of gestation, all the organs have been formed—key organs have formed even before a woman knows she’s pregnant. Those stem cells are turning into organs, including the brain and the gut. Now, there is something that tells those stem cells what to do, whether they should become a heart cell or a brain cell or whatever, and that something is vitamin A. So, if a woman gets pregnant and she has been on a lowfat diet, avoiding liver and not taking her cod liver oil, or eating a lot of lean meat, which rapidly depletes vitamin A, or taking protein powders, which is the quickest way to deplete your body of vitamin A, then she doesn’t have enough vitamin A for those stem cells to know what to do. The heart may not form at all, and she has a miscarriage; or the heart forms with a defect in it. Or the brain doesn’t form well, or the gut doesn’t form well.
Since most of the organs are already formed by the time you know you are pregnant, it is critical to have good levels of vitamin A before you get pregnant. Because by the time you know you’re pregnant, they key organs have formed. And that’s what traditional cultures knew instinctively. They didn’t have PhDs and they didn’t have government officials telling them what to do, but they knew enough to load up on vitamin A-rich foods before they got pregnant. I can’t stress enough the importance of preparation for pregnancy!
Since vitamin A is the number one focus of the Weston A. Price Foundation, we had to find out whether it is toxic, as claimed. Looking at all the studies on vitamin A, we discovered that the vitamin is only toxic if it is taken without the co-factors. And the two main co-factors for vitamin A are vitamin D and vitamin K2. These vitamins typically come in the same foods as vitamin A, so if you’re getting your vitamin A from foods, no problem. But if you are taking vitamin A as a supplement, or eating foods “enriched” with vitamin A, such as cereal or milk, then yes, vitamin A can be a problem. In Europe, vitamin A is added to a lot of foods, and researchers there found a connection of vitamin A with osteoporosis, especially in Scandinavian countries. What vitamin A does in these situations is create a vitamin D deficiency, hence the problem with bone loss.
Vitamin A plays a fascinating role in mental health. Chris Masterjohn wrote an article called “Nutrition and Mental and Emotional Development,” now posted on the Weston A. Price Foundation website. He describes research involving rats, which found that if the animals have plenty of vitamin A in their diet, they will complete tasks. For example, when the rats are given the task of climbing a hill to get to some cheese at the top, they will do it. And if they are deficient in vitamin A, they won’t make the effort to get the cheese. Studies in humans also indicate that vitamin A is very important for planning and completion of tasks, which is what makes us human and mentally healthy. Planning and carrying through of tasks is what builds civilizations, so vitamin A is critical, not just for primitive people, but for civilized people as well.
VITAMIN D FOR THE BRAIN
The companion of vitamin A is vitamin D, which we get mostly from the same foods, namely certain seafoods and the fats and organ meats of animals raised outside in the sunlight–this is why we are so insistent on pasture-raising of animal foods. If the animals consume green green grass, they will have plenty of vitamin A in their fats and organ meats; it they live outside in the sunlight, they will have plenty of vitamin D in their fats and organ meats.
Now vitamin D has many roles in the body but the one I want to focus on today is its role in making endorphins. Endorphins are feel-good chemicals. One of the most amazing things scientists have discovered in the past ten years is that our bodies, when they are healthy, make exactly the same chemicals that we find in opium and marijuana. The opiates and cannabinoids that your body makes are precisely the same as those found in the plant world. And we have receptors for these chemicals in our brains—which is obvious because when people take drugs, they get high. Actually, the body was designed to feel high all the time, to feel good all the time, and without any negative side effects, without addictions except the addiction to feeling good all the time.
So let’s connect the dots here! Why do people take drugs and get addicted to them? It’s because they are trying to feel normal! They’re trying to feel the way we are supposed to feel all the time, but don’t because the receptors aren’t working and they are not making their natural cannabinoids and opiates. Vitamin D is absolutely critical to this process. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin; sunshine makes us feel good, and vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, helps us make these opiates and ensures they work properly.
We are designed to feel good from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. And we are designed to feel happy when we complete a task, whether it’s washing the dishes or writing a book. And I think we now have a lot of children and adults who never feel that way. So they look to thrills, to drugs, to junk food, to childish behavior, as a substitute.
VITAMIN K2 FOR THE BRAIN
Another vitamin for brain health is vitamin K2. Dr. Price studied this vitamin, but he was never able to name it. He called it Activator X because it seemed to be a very important vitamin for using minerals in the body, as well as for growth, neurological function and protection from cavities.
Dr. Price tested many foods for Activator X and found that the richest source was butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass in the spring and fall. He called it “high-vitamin butter.” Dr. Price always gave cod liver oil, rich in vitamins A and D, together with high-vitamin butter, rich in Activator X. He often got miraculous results with this combination, such as reversing tooth decay. He actually cured a child of seizures with this combination.
We finally figured out that Activator X is vitamin K2, the animal form of vitamin K. We looked into the literature and, lo and behold, we found that vitamin K is critical to the formation of the myelin sheath and the nerves in the brain.
So Dr. Price’s fat-soluble activators, vitamins A, D and K2, are critical nutrients for the brain to be formed, to function properly, for good mental health and for the completion of tasks and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from completing tasks. And where do we get these vitamins? Do we get them from vegetable oils? No. Do we get them from flax oil? No. We don’t even get them from coconut oil. Do we get them from margarine? Only a little bit of synthetic vitamin A added to the margarine. We get them from the fat of grass-fed animals–the very food that has disappeared from our diets. We’re afraid to eat these fats and even if we do eat these fats, if we obtain them at the supermarket, coming from confinement cows, they are not going to provide a lot of the fat-soluble activators.
That means, if we want to have intelligent, happy and well-adjusted children, we will need to seek out sources of these foods. We’ll need to make an effort to purchase our animal foods—our milk, butter, eggs and meat—from a farmer practicing grass-based animal husbandry.
B12 AND THE BRAIN
Another important vitamin for the brain and nervous system is B12, in fact it is critical for neurological health. Vitamin B12 comes from animal foods. You need it for your nervous system to function normally, and deficiencies manifest as psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive behavior, irrational anger, depression, manic depression, Alzheimer’s and dementia. We only get vitamin B12 from animal foods and, in the case of land animals, only if there is cobalt in the soil. Seafood is an excellent source of B12—clams, oysters, mussels, crab, shrimp.
CHOLINE FOR THE BRAIN
Another very important nutrient for the brain is choline. When the baby is growing and developing, there are certain periods when the body says “time to make some connections up there.” And to make those connections in the brain, you need choline. If the mother is deficient during pregnancy, and the baby is not getting enough choline during growth, then those connections will not form. And you can’t go back later and make the connections. The window of opportunity has passed.
The best source of choline is egg yolks; the second best source is liver—so once again, critical nutrients for the brain are found in the high-cholesterol foods our government doesn’t want us to eat. I have been listening to the USDA webinars on the new dietary guidelines. One man on the guidelines committee was insistent that we lower the daily allowance of cholesterol from 300 mg to 200 mg. (We could only hear the discussion–we were listening through the computer–we couldn’t see the committee members.) Two hundred mg of cholesterol translates to less than one egg a day for animal food. One of the women on the committee said, “Yes, but what about choline?” These children need choline for their brains to form. And the man said, “Well the problem with choline is that it comes with cholesterol.” That’s the attitude of our government officials. They are willing to sacrifice good nutrition on the altar of the cholesterol theory.
Studies with rats show that if you give them ten times the daily allowance of choline, their brains form so well that they are impervious to decline in old age. Moreover, they are totally protected from excito-toxins like MSG. And they are also protected from the new threat—EMFs, all these waves in the air from cell towers, cell phones and computers. So choline is really important for making those connections in the brain and for having a really good, solid well-built brain that works properly into old age.
SALT AND THE BRAIN
Another key nutrient for the brain is salt. Years ago a company making soy formula decided they were going to make it “healthy” and also save money by leaving out the salt. Giving baby formula based on soy is bad enough—for one thing, there is no cholesterol in soy formula—but taking out the salt made it worse. It was called Low-Sodium Formula; babies brought up on this formula had poor mental development; they had lots of problems compared to those who had soy formula with salt. My colleague, Mary Enig, was an expert witness in a trial against the formula company. The plaintiffs won their case, got a big settlement and that company went out of business. The formula industry learned the lesson to always put salt in the formula. But what about a nursing mother who is on a low-salt diet, thinking she shouldn’t eat salt? Or a pregnant woman who believes she shouldn’t eat salt? La Leche League’s book for nursing mothers recommends a low-salt diet, so there’s not going to be much salt for the breastfeeding baby. What salt does is stimulate an enzyme that helps form glial cells. Glial cells are the cells that make you capable of creative thinking.
MINERALS FOR THE BRAIN
Two key minerals for mental development are iron and zinc. These are found mostly in animal foods, especially red meat and liver, and both require vitamin A for proper assimilation. Zinc is involved in over one hundred enzymatic processes in the body. Lack of iron leads to mental retardation. Babies and children with iron deficiency anemia tend not to smile, not to have social interaction. This is not a fate we want to impose on our babies! It is very important for mothers to eat iron-rich foods like liver while pregnant and nursing, and for baby to get iron-rich solid food by the age of six months.
THE SECOND BRAIN
Now, let’s consider our second brain and discuss what the digestive tract needs to be healthy–because if there are problems in the gut, there are going to be problems in the head.
We have seen an amazing paradigm shift during the last ten years. We now know that for the gut to be healthy it needs to be coated with a bio-film. If you have a healthy gut, you have six pounds of beneficial bacteria coating every surface of the small intestine. You have more bacteria in your gut than you have cells in your body.
Your biofilm does many things: it keeps out toxins, it helps digest our food, it produces feel-good chemicals and keeps bad micro-organisms at bay, pathogens like candida, fungi and some of the horrible microorganisms that we are finding in the guts of unhealthy children, especially in autistic children. Some of these fungi and yeasts can produce veritable nerve toxins. One of these nerve toxins produced by pathogenic yeasts in the gut is identical to the toxin the people in the Amazon use to coat their spears to anesthetize animals. In humans, it causes a strange way of walking that we often see in autistic children, where they flap their hands in a spastic way. And some yeasts produce alcohol, so the child is basically hung over all the time.
We need to feed not only ourselves, we also need to feed our bio-film to make sure it’s healthy. That means eating lacto-fermented foods like sauerkraut, full of beneficial bacteria. All traditional cultures had these types of fermented foods or beverages to constantly replace the bacteria in the intestinal tract. We don’t mean pasteurized sauerkraut or sauerkraut made with vinegar, but cabbage that’s fermented to produce lactic acid and lots of good bacteria. There are a host of recipes in Nourishing Traditions for making these delicious foods. The idea is to eat a small amount day, hopefully with every meal, in order to feed that bio-film.
At the same time, we don’t want to hurt our bio-film. The first thing that hurts the bio-film is antibiotics, and there is a very big correlation between autism and mothers having been on many courses of antibiotics. Fluoridated and chlorinated water also really mess up the bio-film.
One more thing: in order to be kind to our biofilm, we need to make sure that we don’t eat things that are indigestible. When we eat foods that are indigestible, the good bacteria make way for candida and yeasts, because they can break down indigestible foods, and that’s when our problems start.
Grains are indigestible—human beings cannot digest grains. We can predigest them though, and all traditional cultures did this by soaking the grains, fermenting the grains, or using a sourdough culture to prepare the bread. So we soak our porridge overnight; we soak our flour to make pancakes, we use only genuine sourdough bread. Beans are a nutritious food but also are very hard to digest; they need to be soaked several times and rinsed thoroughly before cooking.
Another thing that is hard on our ecosystems is pasteurized and ultrapasteurized milk. Also, vegetable oils, both liquid and hardened, are a huge assault on our internal flora.
Many vegetables are impossible to digest, especially for those with an immature or sensitive digestive track. Very high-fiber vegetables such as dark leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables need to be thoroughly cooked.
And then there’s sugar and white flour—these are empty foods for humans but candida and yeasts go crazy over them. That’s why it’s important to keep these refined foods to an absolute minimum—which is very difficult to do in modern society.
BROTH FOR THE SECOND BRAIN
One other food that provides amazing support for your intestinal tract is gelatin-rich bone broths, made from the bones and cartilage of animals—the famous chicken soup of our ancestors. They never threw away the bones; instead they made soup with them. For example, Native Americans never drank water, they always drank bone broth. Very interesting! That’s something we’ve gotten out of the habit of doing in our modern culture. Bone broth is important for many reasons—it helps digestion and supports detoxification. But most importantly, bone broth is the magic healer for the gut, in fact the most healing gut food there is.
THE DIET FOR A HEALTHY BRAIN
So what does our diet look like in practice–a diet for creating a healthy baby and helping that baby to have optimal development? It’s a diet that needs to start before you get pregnant.
First of all, let’s focus on the foods to avoid, namely industrial foods, foods containing industrial fats and oil;, pasteurized processed dairy products; foods containing MSG, artificial sweeteners and other neurotoxic additives; lowfat products; foods containing sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Try to get off sodas and caffeine. It’s worth the effort, I guarantee you!
Now let’s focus on the positive. The diet for preconception and a healthy pregnancy contains one quart of whole raw milk from grass-fed cows per day, plus lots of butter. You should eat at least two egg yolks per day. You can have the whole egg if you want but the important part is the yolk.
The diet should include cod liver oil every day, cod liver oil to provide 20,000 units of vitamin A and 2,000 units of Vitamin D. If you take fermented cod liver oil, or a product called high-vitamin butter oil, you will also get Activator X, vitamin K2. By the way, it’s easy to take cod liver oil. I’m a very picky eater yet I have no trouble taking cod liver oil. The key is not to take it on a spoon; that’s the worst way to take cod liver oil! Instead, mix it with a little water, a little milk, a little fresh juice, something like that, then just take it in one gulp.
The diet should contain some kind of organ meat two or three times a week. Liver is the most nutritious organ meat, and the best way to eat liver is as paté. I had never eaten liver in my life until I went to Europe and ate paté. Then my body gave a sigh of relief because it was getting what it needed. I have enjoyed paté ever since. It’s easy to make chicken liver paté and chicken, goose or duck liver is probably the best kind of liver to eat because it contains a beautiful balance of A and D and it’s also very high in vitamin K2. You get all three in poultry liver.
Cheese! Cheese is a great food to consume during your pregnancy. Raw cheese that comes from pastured animals has everything you need in it. You could live on raw cheese and nothing else. It’s a very rich source of vitamin K, very good source of A and D, wonderful source of calcium and all the minerals! Did you know the USDA is targeting cheese in the new dietary guidelines? They are going to tell you not to eat cheese because it contains what they call “solid fats.”
You can include meat in the diet and also seafood. We’re not afraid of seafood! People are afraid of seafood because they have been told it contains mercury. But you have a powerful protection against mercury if you have a good biofilm in your gut. That biofilm keeps out mercury—but it won’t keep out the mercury out-gassing from your fillings. It might be a good idea to have those out if you are trying to get pregnant. But a good biofilm will keep out the mercury in the fish you eat—after all, there has always been mercury in the sea. And numerous studies have shown that mothers who eat seafood have smarter babies.
You’ll want to eat lacto-fermented foods to support that good biofilm. And broth every day to help digest your food, give you lots of nourishment, and support a healthy gut.
Remember to include lots of butter in your diet, and you can cook in lard; you can have all the animal fats you want. And you can have fruits and vegetables, you can have natural desserts. Also, we like to point people to natural, healthy soft drinks like kombucha and healthy lacto-fermented ginger ale and root beer.
Be sure to include salt, you can have as much salt as you want, preferably unrefined salt. So you can eat salty foods, fatty foods, sweet foods, you can have nice bubbly drinks–you can have all those things but in the form that’s going to be nutritious for you. So, you won’t be depriving yourself at all, this is a really delicious and satisfying diet.
This diet continues during pregnancy and during breast feeding. And most of our gals just sail through their pregnancies on this diet.
I do want to say something about morning sickness. If you have morning sickness, the very best food for you is raw milk. It’s very high in vitamin B6, needed to combat nausea. You just sip that raw milk all day long, and in most cases it works very well.
The result will be a beautiful, healthy baby. You will notice that these babies are very alert from the moment of birth. They seem to be aware of things very early on. They take directions easily. They are strong, they have strong muscles. They digest their food well.
The ideal is to breast feed for at least a year, maybe even two years. But I do want to warn about exclusive breast feeding past the age of six months. Breast milk is low in iron for a reason, because it competes for zinc, needed for the nervous system. Fortunately, every single bit of the iron in breast milk or in raw milk is absorbed because an enzyme called lactoferrin insures that all the iron is utilized. But by six months, baby needs more iron; he will not get enough from breast milk. And in traditional cultures, the first food was usually liver, which the mother chewed and gave to the baby.
So, we recommend some puréed liver as a first food. You can add butter and salt to it. And the other first food for baby is egg yolk, starting slowly, maybe just a teaspoon at first, and then gradually build up to one egg yolk a day.
If you are feeding your baby this way while you are nursing, by the time your baby is ten or eleven months, he or she will be sitting up and wanting to eat like a big boy or a big girl. And so you gradually introduce other foods. Please don’t hold back if your baby wants solid food. You’ll find that these babies are very mature quite early. They have good digestive systems. And then as they grow, you can feed them just the way you have been eating, the same foods for creating a healthy baby are what baby needs to grow properly and be healthy.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Posted on April 15, 2009 by Christopher Masterjohn • 9 Comments 
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How Nutrient-dense Animal Fats Promote Mental and Emotional Health
Weston Price observed healthy and cheerful dispositions accompanying the broad facial development and robust immunity to degenerative disease that characterized members of isolated groups eating traditional diets. He emphasized above all the importance of the fat-soluble vitamins for prevention and reversal of tooth decay and full skeletal development. Modern science has now elucidated the role of nutrient-dense animal fats in preventing mental illness and supporting the focused, goal-oriented behavior needed to confront challenges and pursue a happy, satisfying, and successful life.
Clinically defined psychiatric disorders afflict just under half of Americans for at least one period of time during their lives.1 Depression and anxiety often occur together and also often occur in conjunction with physical ailments such as inflammatory bowel disease2 and asthma.3 The lifetime prevalence of depression, anxiety, impulse control and substance abuse disorders is twice as high for people born after 1945 than for those born earlier, and the proportion of Americans suffering from three or more disorders—nearly a fifth—has more than tripled for the post-World War II generations.1
A Dreary Picture
Since the 1980s, Americans have become much less future-oriented, racking up heavy debt rather than saving money. The personal savings rate has dropped from its traditional eight to twelve percent to near zero and went negative in both 2001 and 2005—the first times since the Great Depression.4 The ratio of household debt to after-tax income has doubled from just over 60 percent in the early 1980s to its current 120 percent.5 It would take the average American household 240 years to pay off its debt with the money it currently saves.6
This dreary picture of household finances reflects an even drearier picture of public finances. The national debt has recently ballooned to over ten trillion dollars and ever since September, 2007 has been increasing at nearly four billion dollars per day.7 In fact, the National Debt Clock located in Times Square has been keeping track of the national debt only since 1989 but has already run out of digits—in September, 2008, the dollar sign had to be removed in order to make room for the new value.8
Personal success depends on confronting challenges with focused, goal-oriented behavior rather than hiding from such challenges in self-defeat, while at the same time restraining the impulse to spend and consume all the fruits of one’s labor in the present in order to build something greater for the future. Societies likewise build wealth in the aggregate when their members refrain from consuming a portion of their resources in the present so that those resources can be invested for the future. This begins with the first seed that a farmer plants in anticipation of harvest and the first calf that is raised to maturity for the milk, cheese, and butter she will produce. It extends to the family that saves ten percent of its income to eventually purchase a home and the entrepreneur who turns natural resources and knowledge into industrial machines.
As a nation—and increasingly as a global community—we have lost sight of these principles. Worse, they have been systematically undermined by the government and politically connected corporations for nearly a century. As our government creates new money to pay for government debt or to bail out irresponsible corporations, inflation sets in and the value of savings declines. After taxes and inflation, capital investments that would otherwise earn a ten percent return earn only 1.5 percent while deposits in savings accounts steadily lose over two percent per year.6 Wealth can be transferred from one group of people to another through taxes and inflation when a nation fails to save and invest, but it cannot be created.
Inner levels of the government have known that fluoride is psychoactive since at least 1944, precisely the time when interest in fluoridating public water supplies began.9 Since then, a whole slew of potentially psychoactive drugs and food additives has been released onto the market, although none has received such an orchestrated campaign of government support as the cholesterol-lowering statins, which produce episodes of transient global amnesia in the worst cases10 and modest impairments in cognitive functioning for the average adult user,11 but whose effects on personal finances or social and family life and whose cognitive effects in the young children to whom they are now marketed have not been studied.
As will be shown in this article, nutrient-rich animal fats are so important to a healthy psychological and emotional disposition that the orchestrated campaign to replace meat and eggs with soy and refined grains and to replace traditional animal fats with corn, soy, and canola oils has most certainly been a major factor contributing to the ongoing decimation of the American Dream.
A Silver Lining
As future-orientation diminishes and impulse disorders increase across social strata, more children will get in trouble in school, more poor people will go to jail, and more rich people will get multi-billion dollar handouts from the government. Families that stubbornly—or heroically— hold on to old-fashioned work ethics and savings habits will be punished by inflation while banks that lend out money they do not even have to reckless investors will be rewarded with more money created out of thin air. Although this scenario may sound like a recipe for disaster, the truth is that while the big boys at the top are partying away the remains of the public’s wealth, each of us in the traditional foods movement is rebuilding society from the bottom up.
As communities become more connected to their resident farmers, they will begin to recapture the basic principles of wealth creation that every farmer embraces, beginning with the very simple understanding that the fruits of the harvest can never be sold before the soil is tilled and the seeds are planted. As we teach people to put aside a portion of their time to invest in healthy eating now so their vibrant years can extend decades into the future, we teach people to become more future-oriented. The lesson of future-orientation is brought home to us regularly on a smaller scale as we observe how much more delicious and satisfying an overnight bone broth is than a soup taken out of a can, or how several weeks of aging can make all the difference in the flavor and aroma of homemade sauerkraut.
At the same time, the traditional diets we embrace provide the fat-soluble nutrients necessary to give us freedom from depression and anxiety and to support the motivation we need to sustain focused, goal-oriented effort over time.
The Fat-Soluble Vitamins
Vitamins A, D, E, and K are the four traditionally recognized fat-soluble vitamins. The essential fatty acids arachidonic acid and DHA, however, are needed in similarly small amounts and fulfill similar functions. While all of these nutrients are important to the nervous system, in this article I will discuss how arachidonic acid cooperates with vitamins A and D to promote mental health by regulating the adrenal hormone cortisol and the neurotransmitter dopamine through the potent central nervous system regulators known as endocannabinoids (See Figure 1).
Arachidonic acid is a 20-carbon omega-6 fatty acid found primarily in eggs and liver and in smaller amounts in all other animal fats including butterfat. It is generally considered a “bad fat” because certain highly regulated enzymes can convert it into inflammatory compounds, but it is nevertheless necessary for healthy hair and skin, ovulation, and thus fertility.12 Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health followed almost 20,000 women for over eight years and found that the more high-fat dairy the women ate the less likely they were to have problems with ovulation, while the more low-fat dairy the women ate the more likely they were to fail to ovulate and thus be infertile.13 These data suggest that many people in the general population may not obtain adequate amounts of arachidonic acid.
While we obtain preformed arachidonic acid from animal fats, healthy adults can also synthesize small amounts from omega-6 linoleic acid, found in both plant oils and animal fats. Vitamin A, however, is necessary for this conversion (see Figure 2) and, as we shall see, also helps carry out dopamine signaling more directly. Vitamin A is present in large amounts in liver and cod liver oil and in small amounts in eggs and butterfat. Healthy adults can convert beta-carotene and other carotenoids present in fruits and vegetables to vitamin A, but this conversion is generally inefficient. Half of Americans consume less than the RDA for vitamin A14 and over a quarter of Americans consume less than half this amount.15
Vitamin D directly interacts with vitamin A in many contexts and is critical to maintaining blood and tissue levels of calcium. Calcium is a central regulator of arachidonic acid metabolism in virtually every type of cell, making vitamin D essential for proper handling of this nutrient. Vitamin D is present in large amounts in fatty fish and cod liver oil and in small amounts in the fats of land animals. We also obtain vitamin D when we are exposed to sunshine in the ultraviolet-B range, which at most latitudes is available only during the summer months. About half of all Americans and over 80 percent of African Americans have blood levels of vitamin D below the level needed to maximize calcium absorption.16
The Endocannabinoids
Arachidonic acid is the direct precursor to the endocannabinoids, the natural compounds made within the body that activate the cannabinoid receptors. These compounds and their receptors are named after Cannabis sativa, also known as marijuana. The active component of marijuana, THC, activates the same receptors, although since it is a pharmacological agent provided at unnaturally high doses, it has many undesirable effects that the natural activators derived from arachidonic acid do not have.
A brain cell will only convert arachidonic acid into endocannabinoids in response to a rapid influx of calcium into the cell.17 This influx is tightly controlled: the cell deliberately keeps the concentration of calcium outside its boundaries ten thousand-fold higher than the concentration of calcium within its boundaries; only when told to do so by another chemical signal will the cell open the calcium channels that will let this mineral come flooding in.18 Obviously, if calcium is not present, due to deficiency of either calcium or vitamin D, there will be no influx of calcium into the cell to initiate the conversion of arachidonic acid to endocannabinoids. Calcium must therefore be obtained in the diet, and vitamin D is necessary to absorb this vital mineral so that it can be transported through the blood and into the brain. It is also possible that the brain uses vitamin D as the direct chemical signal to open the calcium channels since a number of other cell types use vitamin D in a similar way.19
Endocannabinoids regulate the adrenal response to stress, mediated primarily by the hormone cortisol, which is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response; they also regulate the production of dopamine in the brain, which is responsible for the motivation to sustain goaloriented effort over time. By curbing the excess production of cortisol and supporting adequate production of dopamine, endocannabinoids help prevent excess tension, anxiety, burnout, and feelings of self-defeat and help support the confrontation of challenges with the attitudes necessary for success.
Cortisol: Flight or Fight
We often hear that it is not stress itself that is bad, but our reaction to stress. If we confront our challenges and overcome them, they will help promote our success, but if we fear them, run from them, and worry over them, we will mentally and emotionally fall apart.
One of the potential reactions to stress is the fight-or-flight response. The adrenals produce the hormone cortisol, which raises blood sugar, increases muscle tension and strength, and prepares us for the extreme reactions necessary to defend our lives when our survival is threatened. This reaction is necessary in certain situations but needs to be regulated. If we react to the minor stresses in our daily lives with the fight-or-flight response, we will be constantly anxious and will eventually burn out or develop chronic conditions like heart disease.
The fight-or-flight response is controlled by the hypothalamus, an almond-sized gland-like portion of the brain that communicates with the master gland, the pituitary. The hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which tells the pituitary to release its own signal into the blood, which in turn tells the adrenal gland to ramp up its production of cortisol. This system is called the hypothalamus- pituitary-adrenal axis or the HPA axis.20
A number of lines of evidence suggest that the regulation of the fight-or-flight response by the hypothalamus is disturbed in anxiety and depression. Mice that are genetically altered to make too much CRH or that are injected with CRH exhibit behaviors characteristic of these two mental illnesses. Depressed adults and those who have experienced traumatic experiences earlier in life have elevated levels of CRH in their cerebrospinal fluid, and this generally normalizes if they are treated with effective therapies. A drug that antagonizes CRH reduced depression and anxiety in a placebo-controlled trial, although the drug also proved toxic to the liver.20
The endocannabinoids derived from arachidonic acid are central regulators of the HPA axis. When researchers physically restrain rats for thirty minutes, their blood levels of corticosterone—the equivalent of cortisol in the human—shoot up seven-fold. When they are given a drug that raises the level of natural endocannabinoids in the brain, however, corticosterone only rises two- to three-fold.21 It is difficult for us to say for sure whether this suppression of the fight-or-flight response is good or bad, because we do not know what the ideal blood levels of adrenal hormones are for a given stressful situation. It would be more informative to look at how such a drug affects behavior.
In the “elevated zero maze” (Figure 3), rats are held high off the ground and are given the opportunity to stay in closed spaces or explore open spaces. This test evaluates the internal conflict the rat experiences between its fear of predators and its desire to explore its environment. The higher the level of anxiety, the more the rat will run from its fears and stay in the closed spaces; the lower the level of anxiety, the more the rat will confront its challenges and explore the open spaces. Rats on an ordinary lab chow diet will spend only twenty percent of the time in open spaces, but rats given the drug used in the previous experiment, which raises the level of natural endocannabinoids, will spend up to forty or sixty percent of the time in the open spaces.22 This finding suggests that the levels of endocannabinoids achieved in the brain on a “normal” diet can, at least in rats, be increased in order to produce less anxiety-driven and more productive behavior.
Dopamine: Goal-Oriented Behavior
The endocannabinoids not only regulate the HPA axis; they also regulate dopamine production in the brain. Dopamine concentrations ordinarily increase in response to novel or pleasurable experiences, but this increase can be completely abolished by feeding rats a drug that blocks the cannabinoid receptor.23
Dopamine has traditionally been seen as a “reward” stimulus. If rats are required to do work to obtain a highly palatable food, they will cease doing the work if researchers deplete them of dopamine through surgery or drugs. Researchers initially concluded from this finding that, in the absence of dopamine, the food is no longer pleasurable. Several lines of evidence have developed over the last two decades, however, that refute the simplistic understanding of dopamine as a reward molecule and show instead that dopamine provides the motivation to sustain consistent, goaloriented effort over time. When dopamine levels drop, animals become less future-oriented and more present-oriented and are only willing to do work that will obtain an immediate reward.24
One of the most often-used experiments in this line of research is called the concurrent choice procedure. In it, rats are given the choice between a regular food that they can obtain freely and a preferred food that they can only obtain by pressing a lever. Dopamine depletion does not change the rat’s preference for the preferred food if the lever-pressing is not required, so the rat still finds it just as pleasurable. If the work requirement is low—for example, if the rat must only press the lever once or four times to obtain a pellet of the pleasurable food—then the dopamine-depleted rat will press the lever just as often as the normal rat. Even if weights are added to the lever so that the rat has to do more and more physical work, the dopamine-depleted rat will still do just as much work as the normal rat. It is only when the rat must do work for a longer amount of time before obtaining its reward that the dopamine-depleted rat fails to perform.24
The clearest demonstration of this finding was an experiment published in 2001 in which rats were rewarded one pellet of preferred food for every fifty lever presses, but on different payment schedules. Normal rats would do just as much work to receive six pellets after 300 lever presses as they would to receive one pellet after fifty lever presses. Dopaminedepleted rats, however, began doing much less work to receive two pellets for every 100 lever presses and essentially ceased doing any work at all when they were rewarded with four pellets for every 200 lever presses.24 This experiment clearly showed that dopamine is a central regulator of future-orientation and the willingness to sustain effort over time towards a goal that will be achieved at some point in the future.
Endocannabinoids thus not only prevent the anxiety and feeling of self-defeat that leads us to run from challenges rather than confronting them, but also help support the future-oriented maintenance of sustained effort that is necessary for personal financial and career success and a prosperous society.
Vitamin A: Friend or Foe?
Vitamin A supports the production of arachidonic acid (see Figure 2) and supports the dopamine system more directly by stimulating the production of dopamine receptors and at least three other proteins involved in carrying out the cellular response to dopamine.25 Researchers have not examined the relationship between vitamin A status and depression, but the physical ailments with which such mental illnesses are associated are in turn associated with vitamin A deficiency. For example, the incidence and severity of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease, and the incidence and severity of asthma in children, are all associated with deficient blood levels of vitamin A.26-28 This would lead many people to suggest that vitamin A might be involved in preventing depression or anxiety. Recent literature reviews, however, suggest precisely the opposite—that vitamin A causes depression.25,29
In fact, one review even acknowledged that the actions of vitamin A on the dopamine system are “the opposite to what would be expected for an agent that promotes depression.” Rather than suggesting that vitamin A helped prevent depression, the authors suggested that vitamin A may support dopamine signaling so robustly that it leads to dopamine exhaustion.25
There are two lines of evidence that these reviews offer in support of the hypothesis that vitamin A causes depression: the vitamin A-related drug Accutane has been associated with depression and suicide; and researchers have claimed that the high vitamin A intakes of the Arctic Inuit cause a phenomenon known as Eskimo hysteria.
Accutane is not vitamin A. The body handles it differently from natural vitamin A (see Figure 4) and there are a number of lines of evidence showing that it acts as an anti-vitamin A compound that can aggravate vitamin A deficiency. In newborn mice treated with dexamethasone, a drug that induces emphysema-like changes to lung tissue, natural vitamin A helps treat the disorder while the active ingredient of Accutane has no effect and may even make it worse.30 Accutane caused night blindness, a traditional sign of vitamin A deficiency, in a child with cystic fibrosis, whereas vitamin A supplementation resolved the night blindness.31 In rats, the active ingredient of this drug accumulates in the eyes and interferes with vitamin A recycling; rats taking it at high doses took fifty times longer to recover from exposure to intense light than rats that did not take the drug at all.32
A physician published a letter earlier this year reporting that two patients developed depression on Accutane; when the physician took them off the drug and supplemented them with 10-12,000 IU of vitamin A for seven to ten days, the depression resolved and they were able to go back on the drug without it recurring.33 The totality of the evidence strongly suggests that vitamin A deficiency contributes to depression and that Accutane is associated with this mental illness because it interferes with vitamin A metabolism.
Ironically, in order to understand the connection of vitamin D with mental health, we must examine the next criticism levied against vitamin A.
Vitamin D and Eskimo Hysteria
Recent reviews reference a 1985 paper arguing that the high intake of vitamin A among the Arctic Inuit was responsible for a phenomenon of hysteria that they called pibloktoq.34 This disorder involves several days of irritability or withdrawal, a sudden excitation wherein the victim flees the camp and engages in irrational and dangerous behavior, convulsive seizures, a twelve-hour period of coma or stuporous sleep, and a return to normal. The author offers the following lines of evidence supporting a tie to vitamin A toxicity: the Inuit consider polar bear liver, which is the richest source of vitamin A, to be toxic; explorers who eat polar bear liver out of necessity experience drowsiness, irritability, headaches, and nausea within hours of consuming it; and case reports of vitamin A toxicity involve irritability, drowsiness, double vision and anorexia.
Even within this paper the author mentions numerous facts that make this hypothesis problematic. The specific symptoms of pibloktoq are limited to the Arctic and Antarctic and tend to occur in the late winter and early spring. There is no compelling explanation for why vitamin A toxicity would fall within these geographical and seasonal restrictions. The Inuit consider polar bear liver safe as long as the membrane is removed and consider seal liver, which contains half as much vitamin A, safe to eat in unlimited quantities. If vitamin A were the toxic component of polar bear liver, the cultural prohibition against eating the membrane would therefore be useless. Finally, vitamin A toxicity generally accompanies chronically high intakes over time, usually of chemically altered supplemental forms, whereas the hysterical episodes found among the Inuit are acute and sporadic.
In 1972, another author offered a much better hypothesis tying the episodes to hypocalcemic tetany, a disorder of involuntary muscle contractions accompanying severe deficiencies of calcium and vitamin D.35 The muscle contractions occur because the peripheral nerves cannot regulate their impulses in the absence of calcium. The disorder is often accompanied by “emotional and cognitive disorganization” and convulsive seizures, probably resulting from the absence of calcium in the central nervous system. Like pibloktoq, episodes are acute and sporadic.
Populations that inhabit areas of the Arctic where fishing is limited or the weather is unsuitable for drying fish—the primary source of vitamin D and calcium in the Inuit diet—have high rates of tetany in infants and muscle cramps, a related symptom, in adults. The bone disease rickets, by contrast, is extremely rare, suggesting that in the physically demanding environment of the Arctic, the Inuit have adapted by giving skeletal development priority over the nervous system. The Inuit have inherited numerous cultural adaptations centered on providing sufficient calcium and vitamin D to the members of their groups, especially to pregnant and lactating women, reinforcing the concept that vitamin D and calcium are periodically limiting factors for good health in these populations.
If we are to investigate the mechanism by which vitamin D may be involved in this illness, we should look first of all to its primary function—maintaining calcium status. One compelling explanation for how vitamin D may prevent the convulsive seizures associated with hypocalcemic tetany and pibloktoq is that it supplies the calcium necessary for the production of endocannabinoids. The marijuana derivative hashish has been used since at least the fifteenth century to treat epilepsy. More recent research has shown that the endocannabinoids named after this drug are powerful inhibitors of glutamate toxicity and many other seizure-promoting excitotoxins. Boosting their levels in the brain helps prevent the experimental induction of seizures, while depleting or antagonizing them lowers the amount of drugs necessary to induce seizures.36
The production of endocannabinoids from arachidonic acid is critically dependent on the supply of calcium since it is the influx of this mineral into the cell that turns on the enzymes responsible for this conversion.17 At a minimum, vitamin D is required to supply sufficient calcium to the brain in order for this influx to take place. Since some cells use vitamin D as a signal to open calcium channels and allow a rapid influx of calcium,19 it is possible that brain cells require vitamin D for endocannabinoid production in this way as well.
The Pursuit of Happiness
When taken together these data suggest that nutrient-dense animal fats rich in vitamin A, arachidonic acid, and vitamin D will not only help us avoid mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, but help us to confront our challenges with focused, goal-oriented behavior and to sustain effort over time in order to realize important goals in the future. While there are many other factors that influence mental health—cognitive, social, spiritual—there is a physiological element of mental health that cannot be ignored. A return to traditional foods and traditional methods of food production and preservation will help us restore a culture willing to invest in its future while supplying the nutrients necessary to support the motivation to make that future happen.

SIDEBARS
Figure 1: Arachidonic Acid Cooperates with Vitamins A and D to Regulate Stress Via Dopamine and Cortisol
Arachidonic acid is converted as needed to the endocannabinoids, key regulatory molecules within the central nervous system that support the production of adequate dopamine and curb the production of excess cortisol. In doing so, they help prevent anxiety and depression while supporting the motivation to sustain goal-oriented effort over time. Arachidonic acid can be directly supplied in the diet through animal fats or be made from linoleic acid found in animal fats and plant oils. Vitamin A helps the body make arachidonic acid from linoleic acid and helps the body make the receptors and other proteins that carry out the cellular response to dopamine. Vitamin D helps maintain the calcium necessary to signal the conversion of arachidonic acid to endocannabinoids and may be involved in directly initiating this signal as well.
Figure 2: Vitamin A Is Necessary for the Conversion of Linoleic Acid to Arachidonic Acid
Although arachidonic acid can be supplied directly in the diet, the body can also make it from linoleic acid. Vitamin A directly stimulates the production of the delta-5 desaturase enzyme and appears from unpublished data generated by our laboratory at the University of Connecticut to at least indirectly stimulate the production of delta-6 desaturase. These enzymes also require vitamin B6and biotin.
The Big Picture: Endocannabinoids, Adrenal Hormones, and Thyroid Hormone
A number of lectures at this year’s Wise Traditions conference covered the interactions between endocrine hormones and their relationship to disease. In the lecture on which this article is based, I discussed the ability of endocannabinoids derived from arachidonic acid with the help of vitamins A and D to prevent excess cortisol production and to protect brain cells from glutamate toxicity. Jack Samuels, conversely, discussed the ability of MSG, a form of glutamate, to increase cortisol production.
In the iodine track, Janet Lang discussed the effects of excess cortisol production on thyroid hormone status. Since cortisol shifts the body into a catabolic state in which it will break down tissues, the body will react by decreasing thyroid hormone output and thus slowing metabolism in order to prevent excessive breakdown of important tissues. Since cholesterol is required to make cortisol as well as the sex hormones, excess cortisol production also “steals” cholesterol away from sex hormone production.
David Brownstein discussed the importance of thyroid hormone in preventing heart disease. In the cholesterol-fed rabbit model, massive doses of cholesterol produce atherosclerosis, but if the cholesterol is fed with iodine or thyroid hormone, it does not.
In my article “Cholesterol and Heart Disease: Myth or Truth?” on Cholesterol-And-Health.com, I cover the importance of thyroid hormone for the functioning of the LDL receptor. In the presence of adequate thyroid hormone, the LDL receptor brings cholesterol-containing LDL into tissues such as the liver for recycling, the adrenal gland for cortisol production, or the testes and ovaries for sex hormone production. When LDL spends too much time in the blood instead of delivering cholesterol and fat-soluble vitamins to these tissues, the polyunsaturated fatty acids in its membrane oxidize and it drives the inflammatory process of atherosclerosis in the arterial wall.
These lectures demonstrate the interrelationship between endocrine hormones and the importance of vitamins, minerals and natural foods for balancing and stabilizing the entire system. By avoiding excess glutamate and other excitotoxins, by obtaining adequate arachidonic acid and fat-soluble vitamins for endocannabinoid production, and by avoiding fluoride and bromine and obtaining adequate iodine for thyroid function, we can support the proper functioning of our endocrine system and make sure our cholesterol and fat-soluble nutrients are used for health-promoting purposes rather than left to the ravages of the oxidative degeneration that characterizes toxin-loaded, nutrient-poor modern diets.
Figure 3. The Elevated Zero Maze
The elevated zero maze is shaped like a zero (an open circle) and is elevated off the ground. The rat has the choice between spending time in the open spaces or the closed spaces, thus facing the internal conflict between its fear of predators and its desire to explore its environment. More time spent in the open spaces is taken to indicate a lower level of anxiety.
Dopamine, Time Preference, and the Housing Bubble
The hormonal system of the body has a self-regulating mechanism called homeostasis. Because homeostasis is the complex product of many interacting feedback systems, trying to control a specific component of the system with a drug often works for a time but eventually stops working or produces adverse effects because the drug fails to address the nutrient shortage or toxic factor to which the process of homeostasis is reacting.
Societies engage in homeostasis as well. Economists of the Austrian school call the phenomenon of future-orientation or present-orientation that appears to be regulated by dopamine “time preference” and consider it one of the key homeostatic regulators of society’s allocation of resources. A high time preference means one is present-oriented, whereas a low time preference means one is future-oriented. Dopamine depletion in rats, then, increases time preference.
When people become more future-oriented and their time preference decreases, they save a greater portion of their income. When they deposit that portion into a savings account, more money is available for loans and the interest rate, which is the price of borrowing money, decreases. Large loans required for long-term production of high-priced goods such as houses are thus more available. Since people save more money when they are preparing to buy a house in the future, the interest rate acts as a homeostatic factor that communicates the reduced time preference and increased future- orientation to investors. Investors take out larger loans to build houses, expecting that the saved money will be used to purchase them once they are built.
Our monetary system, however, does not allow this homeostatic regulation to take place. When the government creates digital money out of thin air, the supply of money increases and the interest rate decreases without anyone ever having saved a penny. Investors still take out loans to build houses, but the hoped-for buyers never decreased their time preference, never increased their future-orientation, never saved their money, and simply will not be able to afford to purchase the houses that are being built. When buyers and sellers finally realize this, the housing boom is revealed to be a housing bubble and the bubble bursts. More “drugs” can be added to treat the side effects of the monetary inflation—for example, subsidies can be offered to government-sponsored mortgage entities that will offer loans to people who cannot afford them—but the overmedication of society has the same disastrous consequences as the overmedication of the body. The current financial crisis demonstrates this fact quite clearly.
The natural treatment for society is to return to future-orientation and reduced-time preference by cultivating a culture of responsible saving and by supplying nutrient-dense animal fats that help support adequate production of dopamine, which allows us to sustain effort over time in pursuit of our future goals.
Figure 4: 13-Cis-RA Enters Nucleus Unregulated
Source : Ruhl and others. Embryonic subcellular distribution of 13-cis and all-trans-retinoic acid indicates differential cytosolic/nuclear localization. Toxicol Sci. 2001;63(1):82-9.
The Feel-Good Foods
The foods that protect us against depression and help us engage in low time-preference, future-oriented activities are the same foods that traditional cultures valued for good health. They provide vitamins A and D, calcium and arachidonic acid in abundance.
•	Cod liver oil (vitamins A and D) 
•	Butter from grass-fed animals (arachidonic acid, vitamins A and D) 
•	Egg yolks from grass-fed chickens (arachidonic acid, vitamins A and D) 
•	Fats from grass-fed animals (arachidonic acid, vitamins A and D) 
•	Organ meats from grass-fed animals (arachidonic acid, vitamins A and D) 
•	Bone broths (calcium) 
•	Raw whole milk from grass-fed animals (calcium, arachidonic acid, vitamins A and D) 
•	Fish eggs (vitamins A and D) 
•	Small whole fish (calcium, vitamins A and D) 
•	Shell fish (vitamins A and D)
Meat, Organs, Bones and Skin
Posted on July 2, 2013 by Christopher Masterjohn • 5 Comments 
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Nutrition for Mental Health

SUMMARY
• My anxiety disorders became seriously aggravated on a vegetarian diet but were resolved after including nutrient-dense animal foods in my diet.
• Consistent with my personal experience, seven out of eight studies have shown that vegetarians are more likely than their non-vegetarian counterparts to experience mental disorders.
• These studies cannot prove cause and effect, but vegetarian diets may induce a number of nutrient deficiencies that could contribute to the development of mental disorders.
• Vitamin B12, folate, methionine and glycine support the proper regulation of a biochemical process called methylation, which in turn regulates the neurotransmitter dopamine.
• This biochemical process contributes to the appropriate balance between mental stability and mental flexibility, which is needed for optimal mental health.
• Meat, bones, skin and organ meats such as liver provide a balance of the nutrients needed to support the proper regulation of methylation, and thus to support robust and vibrant mental health.
• Nutrient-dense plant foods are also beneficial.

When I look back on my life and consider my struggles with anxiety, nothing stands in sharper relief than the healing power of nutrient-dense animal foods such as meat, bones, organs and skin. In my late teens, I became a vegetarian, thinking I would save the environment, the animals and even my own health. Six months later I became a vegan, excluding all animal products from my diet. Rather than improving my health, however, I developed problems with digestion and lethargy, a mouth full of tooth decay, and a profound aggravation of the anxiety disorders I had struggled with since my mid-teens.

After a year and a half, I slowly began including animal foods such as eggs, milk and eventually fish in my diet. Nothing seemed to help. After about two years, I caved in to strong cravings for red meat at Christmas dinner. I feasted luxuriously on such meats thereafter, and within two weeks my regular panic attacks had ceased. Nevertheless, I still suffered from the phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder I had had prior to becoming a vegetarian. Several months later, I discovered the work of Weston A. Price.
Aiming to cure my tooth decay, I began incorporating nutrient-dense animal foods such as cod liver oil, liver and other organ meats, bone broths, and animal skins into my diet. Not only did my tooth decay come to a crashing halt, but within months my anxiety disorders disappeared. I thus realized that my health, both physical and mental, had undergone a revolution.
VEGETARIANISM AND MENTAL DISORDERS
To understand why nutrient-dense animal foods seem to have cured my anxiety disorders, it makes sense to ask a simple question: was I alone? Or do others who exclude animal products from their diet also struggle with mental disorders? Prior to 2012, seven studies had addressed this question. Four found that vegetarians were more likely than non-vegetarians to have eating disorders,1,2,3,4 two found they were more likely to be depressed,5,6 one found they had lower self-esteem and more anxiety,3 and one found they were more likely to have contemplated or attempted suicide.1
One study conducted among Seventh-Day Adventists, however, found that vegetarians within this religious group had fewer negative emotions than their non-vegetarian counterparts.7 Although Seventh-Day Adventism does not require vegetarianism, it strongly encourages this way of eating. It is possible this study stands apart from the others because vegetarians within this group experience greater esteem among their peers, are more confident in their own spirituality, or are more conscientious in other areas of their lives just as they adhere more strongly to the teachings of their religion. Regardless of the precise reason for this one anomaly, six out of these seven studies found that vegetarians are more likely to experience mental disorders.
Nevertheless, all of these studies have several limitations: they relied on self-reporting of mental disorders rather than on professional diagnosis; they were conducted in limited populations, most of them in adolescents, one in young women, and one in Seventh-Day Adventists; none of them were matched for sociodemographic characteristics, which are known to differ between vegetarians and their nonvegetarian counterparts; and none of them determined whether the subjects developed mental disorders before or after they became vegetarians.
A study published in 2012 addressed each of these limitations.8 The study included over four thousand respondents to the German National Health Interview and Examination Survey and its Mental Health Supplement, reflecting the general population of Germany rather than a specific subgroup. Clinically trained psychologists and physicians assessed the prevalence of mental disorders by administering a diagnostic interview rather than relying on self-reporting. The investigators took into account socio-demographic characteristics such as age, education, sex, marital status and community size, which was important because vegetarians were younger, more educated, more likely to be female, less likely to be married, and more likely to come from an urban environment. Finally, the investigators determined whether vegetarians with mental disorders began their vegetarian diet before or after the estimated onset of their mental disorder.
Compared to omnivores matched for socio-demographic characteristics, vegetarians were more than twice as likely to be depressed, more than 2.5 times as likely to suffer from an anxiety disorder, and over four times as likely to suffer from an eating disorder. We could interpret these data in three ways: vegetarianism might contribute to the development of anxiety disorders, a pre-existing mental disorder might make someone more likely to become a vegetarian, or an unknown factor might predispose someone both to become a vegetarian and to develop a mental disorder. For example, perfectionism is not a mental disorder and could be beneficial in certain contexts, but the trait could contribute to an anxiety disorder if it gets out of hand, and a perfectionist may see vegetarianism as a way of making their diet “perfect.”
These interpretations are not mutually exclusive, however: someone might be more likely to become a vegetarian because of a particular psychological trait, but vegetarianism could then induce nutrient deficiencies that interact with that psychological trait to produce a disorder. In the German study, half of vegetarians with eating disorders, two-thirds of those with depression, and over 90 percent of those with anxiety disorders developed their mental disorder before becoming a vegetarian, suggesting that vegetarianism was not the singular “cause” of their mental disorders, at least in the large majority of cases. Nevertheless, as shown in Figure 1, vegetarianism could have made many of the subjects more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder by aggravating pre-existing negative psychological traits. In my own case, vegetarianism did not “cause” my anxiety disorders, but it seriously aggravated them, and including abundant amounts of nutrient-dense animal foods in my diet cured them.
We should keep in mind that all eight studies examining the relation between vegetarianism and mental disorders are observational in design and therefore incapable of determining cause and effect, which would require an experimental design. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to suggest the possibility that seven out of eight of them found vegetarians are more likely to suffer from mental disorders at least in part because nutrient-dense animal foods are required for optimal mental health.
SUPPORTING METHYLATION
There are a number of potential deficiencies and imbalances that could develop on a diet devoid of nutrient-dense animal foods: some people may become deficient in cholesterol if they do not make enough of their own; plant goitrogens, some of which require vitamin B12 and sulfur amino acids for their detoxification, could contribute to thyroid problems; deficiencies of vitamin B6, long-chain omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, and fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2 could also develop. This article, however, will focus on the role of vitamin B12, sulfur amino acids, and glycine in supporting and regulating a process known as methylation, which is critical for mental health.
We can see how important these nutrients and the process of methylation are to mental health by considering the neurological and cognitive consequences of severe vitamin B12 deficiency. This condition involves nervous system degeneration, loss of sensation beginning in the toes and progressing to the feet and hands, stiffness and involuntary muscle spasms, disturbed gait, and mental disturbances ranging from mild personality changes and memory loss to psychosis and occasional delirium. Although we do not yet completely understand the exact mechanisms by which vitamin B12 deficiency causes these problems, the primary role of vitamin B12 within our bodies is to support the process of methylation, so a breakdown in this process is almost certainly an important part of the picture.
Methylation is a fancy biochemistry term that simply means the addition of a carbon atom with a small assortment of hydrogen atoms (a “methyl group”) to a wide variety of molecules. Methylation is required for the synthesis of many compounds such as creatine, and the regulation of many others, such as dopamine. As such, it is critical for a broad range of biological processes including tissue growth and repair, cellular communication, and controlling cancer. Among the many molecules whose production or regulation is dependent on methylation, both creatine and dopamine are critical to mental health. This article, however, will focus on dopamine.
TONIC AND PHASIC DOPAMINE
In order to begin exploring the relationship between methylation, dopamine and mental health, we must first understand the difference between tonic and phasic dopamine.10 As shown in Figure 2, tonic dopamine is the modest amount of dopamine that has a constant presence in our brain. It is like a stable body of water, and is important for mental stability. Phasic dopamine is like a wave that comes crashing in, making an appearance for only fractions of a second, and is important for mental flexibility. Methylation regulates tonic dopamine, while our brains have other ways of regulating phasic dopamine.
Nevertheless, as shown in Figure 3, our brains judge the size of the phasic dopamine “wave” by how high it stands above the background of tonic dopamine. A higher level of tonic dopamine makes the “wave” of phasic dopamine look a lot smaller, and our brains react to it accordingly. Thus, as shown in Figure 4, methylation regulates the balance between mental stability and mental flexibility: too much methylation will favor too much flexibility, not enough methylation will favor too much stability, and the level of methylation that is just right will provide the appropriate balance between the two. Thus, our goal is not to increase methylation or decrease methylation, but to provide our brains with the raw materials they need to regulate the process properly.
MENTAL STABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY
Two analogies should prove useful to help us understand the need to balance mental stability with mental flexibility. In the first, we could imagine a potter who makes clay flexible by moistening it before attempting to make something out of it. Too little moisture will lead to brittle clay: it is too dry to shape into anything, and applying enough force to change its shape will simply make it break, exposing rough and sharp edges. Too much moisture will make it easy to manipulate, but no shape given to it will hold. The right amount of moisture will make the clay malleable enough to manipulate into something useful or beautiful, and yet stable enough to retain the shape given it.
Similarly, not enough methylation could lead to “brittle” mental states. Such states are difficult to change, but when they do change, the transitions are sudden and without warning. This brittleness could lead to dangerous situations. For example, ordinarily when we get angry, the process is gradual enough that we may realize what is happening to us and stop ourselves from acting out in our anger, or someone else may notice that we are becoming angry and intervene to diffuse the situation. If our mental states are too brittle, however, we may act violently without warning, giving neither ourselves nor those around us any opportunity to recognize what is happening and intervene. Alternatively, too much methylation could make our minds like a bowl of liquid clay: easy to make a mess with, but difficult to shape into something beautiful or useful.
In the second analogy, we could consider our consciousness like a net through which thousands of thoughts fly every day. These thoughts could be about basic biological drives and needs like food, sex, and sleep; they could be about the multitude of things we need to get done; or they could be thoughts that motivate us, whether to do good things or to do things that would get us into trouble. To achieve mental health, our net of consciousness needs enough flexibility that we are able to manipulate it as each thought approaches, choosing either to let it pass through or to hold on to it. This net also needs enough stability, however, to hold onto beneficial thoughts for as long as they are needed. Without flexibility, we hold onto everything that comes our way indiscriminately. Without stability, we cannot hold onto anything at all. With a proper balance, we become masters of our thoughts rather than their captives.
Evidence from genetic studies supports the role of methylation in maintaining this balance. Some of us have a high or low rate of methylating dopamine for genetic reasons. In those who methylate dopamine at a low rate, unpleasant pictures cause a dramatic stimulation of activity in emotional centers of the brain.11 These people are also much more likely to invest energy into cognitive activity when they are exposed to these emotionally stimulating pictures, and the more energy they invest in cognitive activity the less likely they are to become noticeably disturbed.11 This suggests that low methylation contributes to excessive mental stability. The unpleasant image gets “stuck” in the person’s mind instead of passing through uneventfully, and the person must invest a lot more mental energy to break free of the image’s grasp.
Since being held captive by our own thoughts is a central problem in mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, some researchers have suggested that those who methylate dopamine at a low rate are “worriers,” while those who methylate dopamine at a high rate are “warriors.” While the distinction has some merit, making low methylation the “bad” trait and high methylation the “good” trait is too simplistic.
Between the “worrier” and the person who indiscriminately engages in every battle, there lies the cautious person who picks and chooses her battles. Moreover, genetic studies show that while those who methylate dopamine at a low rate have more difficulty with emotional processing, those who methylate dopamine at a high rate have more difficulty with cognitive processing.12 Psychoses, such as those seen in schizophrenics10 or those suffering from severe vitamin B12 deficiency,13 can manifest in some people with symptoms of excessive mental stability and in other people with symptoms of excessive mental flexibility. Examples include “rigidity of thoughts” on the one hand, and “flight of ideas” on the other. Perhaps the clearest indication that balance is best is that those with genetically high or low rates of methylating dopamine constitute roughly equal proportions of the population, and the majority of us have the genetics for an intermediate rate. If one trait were the “bad” one and the other the “good” one, natural selection would have weeded the “bad” one out long ago.
The question before us, then, is this: regardless of genetics, what kind of nutritional approach can we use to provide our brains with the raw materials they need to maintain the right amount of methylation to support the appropriate balance of mental stability and flexibility needed for optimal mental health?
MEAT, ORGANS, BONES, AND SKIN
As shown in Figure 5 and discussed in more detail in the Fall 2012 issue of Wise Traditions,14 the most basic nutrient we need for the process of methylation is the amino acid methionine. The “meth-” in the word “methionine” refers to this process. Animal proteins are about twice as rich in methionine as plant proteins as a proportion of total protein. Plant foods, moreover, tend to contain much less protein than meats. People who exclude all animal products from their diets thus likely consume three to five times less methionine than those who eat a diet rich in animal products, leading to a dramatic decrease in the raw materials needed for methylation.
As also shown in Figure 5, consuming less methionine should generate less homocysteine. Paradoxically, however, compared to omnivores, vegetarians are twice as likely and vegans are three times as likely to have elevated homocysteine.15 Figure 5 provides a resolution to this paradox: while vegetarians and vegans may generate less homocysteine, they also have lower intakes of vitamin B12, which is needed to recycle homocysteine back to methionine.
Indeed, using the highest quality markers of vitamin B12 status, investigators have estimated that up to 73 percent of vegetarians and up to 90 percent of vegans are deficient in B12.15 This should be unsurprising since vitamin B12 is found almost exclusively in animal products, and even that which occurs in eggs, a key vegetarian source of animal protein, is poorly bioavailable.16 Thus, methylation takes a double-whammy: less methionine is available to begin with, and what is available often gets trapped as homocysteine rather than being recycled.
Figure 5 provides another key part of the balance. When methionine concentrations rise, for example after eating a protein-rich meal, the amino acid glycine acts as a buffer to prevent excessive methylation. Although animal foods are not richer in glycine than plant foods as a proportion of total protein, a diet that includes animal products provides more glycine than one that does not simply because it is richer in total protein.
Vegetarians excrete almost twice the level of a unique marker of glycine deficiency in their urine as omnivores.17 This suggests that excluding animal products from the diet could not only lead to a generally inadequate level of methylation because of lower intakes of methionine and vitamin B12, but the lower intake of glycine could also lead to transient periods of excessive methylation. This could theoretically result in seesawing between excessive mental stability and excessive mental flexibility.
The purpose of this article, however, is not to denigrate vegetarian diets but to emphasize the importance of nutrient-dense animal foods. A standard omnivorous diet is hardly the ideal. Even omnivores excrete substantial amounts of the marker of glycine deficiency discussed above in their urine.17 This could be because the typical omnivore fails to make use of skin and bones in their diet. Protein from skin is three times richer in glycine than meat, while protein from bones is six times richer.14 Thus, most omnivores may stand to gain substantial improvements in mental health by including glycine-rich skin and bones (in the form of bone broth) in their diets.
Moreover, Figure 5 shows that folate assists vitamin B12 in its support of the methylation process. Folate is found primarily in legumes, leafy greens and liver. Vegetarians tend to consume more leafy greens and legumes than omnivores, and most omnivores fail to take advantage of liver or other organ meats. Many omnivores may thus improve their mental health even further by including folate-rich plant foods and liver in their diets.
HARNESSING GOOD NUTRITION FROM ALL SOURCES
Vegetarians and vegans may adhere more strongly than omnivores to other health-promoting habits as well. This is especially important to consider if we are interested in preventing all diseases rather than just mental disorders. For example, Figure 5 shows that glycine helps convert homocysteine to glutathione, the master antioxidant and detoxifier of the cell, and a key regulator of protein function. We might predict from this that vegetarians and vegans should have lower glutathione status than omnivores because of lower intakes of methionine and glycine.
Some studies, however, have shown that while vegans have lower glutathione status than omnivores, vegetarians have slightly higher glutathione status.18 Unlike the vegans, the vegetarians in such studies may have been consuming plenty of milk and eggs. Thus, the vegetarians and omnivores may have had similar intakes of methionine and glycine. Both the vegetarians and vegans may have been consuming more fruits and vegetables. These provide vitamin C, which spares glutathione from oxidation, polyphenols, which increase the production of glutathione, and, especially in their raw state, glutathione itself.
Adequate glutathione status protects against degenerative diseases of all kinds. The best way to support glutathione status would likely be to consume a traditional diet that includes plenty of nutrient-dense foods of all kinds: meat, organs, bones, skin, folate-rich legumes and leafy greens, and fresh fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C, polyphenols, and glutathione.
VIBRANT MENTAL HEALTH
Overall the evidence supports a key role for nutrient-dense animal foods in mental health. Seven out of eight relevant studies show vegetarians have a higher risk of mental disorders than omnivores. These studies cannot demonstrate cause and effect, but both dietary and biochemical data suggest that vegetarians are less able than omnivores to support methylation, and are thus likely less able to support the appropriate balance between mental stability and flexibility needed for optimal mental health. Standard meat-inclusive diets are hardly ideal, however. We should emphasize a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods, including not only meat, but also many animal foods banished from our modern menus, especially bones (usually as bone broth), skin, and organs. Such a diet is the surest way to obtain the robust and vibrant mental health of our ancestors.
Getting at the Gut
Posted on July 18, 2012 by Kim Schuette • 3 Comments 
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A Solution for Treating Bipolar Disorder
The Merck Manual describes bipolar disorder as “a condition in which periods of depression alternate with periods of mania or lesser degrees of excitement.” 1 Historically known as manic-depressive disorder, this psychiatric condition is typically defined by the presence of abnormally elevated energy levels affecting mood and awareness, with or without states of depression. Manic states are often accompanied by psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.
Allopathic medicine’s solution generally involves one or more pharmaceuticals for a lifetime; it never offers a cure but rather, management of erratic behavior via medications that often need to be changed from time to time. Quite commonly, those suffering from bipolar disorder are very bright, creative and loving individuals. Sadly, when brain chemistry goes out of balance, the sufferer most often deals with chaos involving hallucinations, as well as extreme mania and rage. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, once said, “All disease begins in the gut.” While not all individuals with gut dysbiosis experience psychological or psychiatric disease, I have yet to find in thirteen years of practice the absence of gut dysbiosis in those suffering from psychological or psychiatric challenges.

In September 2008, I had the privilege of meeting a very bright but troubled nine-year-old girl, whom I will call Mary. Mary had been diagnosed bipolar eleven months earlier by a psychiatrist. This conclusion came after years of deeply concerning behavior. By the second grade, she was expelled from her private school due to her aggressive behavior towards students and her teacher. This prompted her parents to make the decision to home school. Mary’s mother quit her practice in the health field in order to give full time attention to her daughter’s daily needs.
DISTURBING BEHAVIOR
Prior to seeing the psychiatrist, Mary described in detail to her counselor how she planned to kill herself some day. It was at this point the counselor and her parents realized Mary needed serious help. Her parents’ “gut sense” was that pharmaceuticals would not offer the long-term solution they desired for their daughter. It was at this junction they were referred to my office.
During my first meeting with the family, Mary was in a state of mild agitation with constant fidgeting and head shaking. She described the sensation of “things crawling” in her head. Mary presented with a very red and expansive rash on her bottom, which had been longstanding.
HEALTH HISTORY
Before focusing on Mary, I took a look first at her parents’ health history and habits. I suspected that Mary might be a GAPS patient. GAPS is an acronym for Gut and Psychology Syndrome, based on the work of neurologist Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD. This work finds that those individuals with psychiatric disorders, as well as depression, anxiety, ADD and ADHD also have digestive problems. This is evidenced by many symptoms including (but not limited to) acne, allergies, asthma, constipation, diarrhea, eczema and other skin rashes. Dr. Campbell-McBride’s findings echo the words of Hippocrates that “all disease begins in the gut.” Given the GAPS research, and the fact that children inherit many gut and psychology issues from their parents, I examined her parents’ histories.
Mary’s mother had been a frequent user of the birth control pill and numerous rounds of antibiotics to address chronic bladder infections. She also had a history of vaginal yeast infections, which is common following the use of antibiotics. Antibiotics wipe out most bacteria, good and bad, leaving room on the mucosal lining of the gastrointestinal tract and the vaginal canal for opportunistic yeast to grow.
Mary’s mother also followed a typical American diet with an emphasis on lowfat foods, based on Dean Ornish’s recommendations, prior to conception. Mary’s father was addicted to sugar, Cokes and Oreos. He presented with chronic subcutaneous dermatitis, inflammation of the skin, most commonly seen as eczema. This condition is the result of imbalance of good flora in the gut. Both parents’ diet had a history of strict adherence to the USDA’s recommended food group of choice: grains. They both had used Accutane for the treatment of acne and appeared to suffer from the typical distressed liver function, which generally follows Accutane usage.2
The history of both parents gave me great insight into the weak links in Mary’s development. Both parents suffered from gut dysbiosis. Both parents were unable to pass on strong immunity to their child due to their own weakened states from diets composed primarily of processed foods, high in sugar and gluten and their exposure to antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals that weaken liver function.
Mary showed signs of large motor skill delays in her first year of life. I learned that Mary was conceived in the Sierra Mountains at a time when Lyme disease was widespread. Mary’s mom was an avid hiker, as well as a veterinarian, making it likely that she had come in contact with the spirochete that causes Lyme disease. Research has shown that pathogens like the spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, and its hitchhiking partners, Babesia, Ehrlichia, Bartonella, Mucoplasma and Anaplasma, can cross the placenta barrier and infect the developing child.3
A breached gut wall barrier leaves a child— or adult—vulnerable to pathogenic invaders and bacteria that are simply looking for a home. The gut wall barrier can become breached when there is an absence of life-giving, probiotic bacteria protecting the gut lining and the presence of partially digested proteins, creating lesions in the gut lining. The result is impaired assimilation of nutrients along with inflammation. This is in part due to consuming highly refined grains, or grains not properly soaked and properly prepared. The lack of lacto-fermented foods is another contributing factor in developing a breached gut wall barrier.
Mary was born via C-section, therefore she would have missed out on the natural inoculation of friendly bacteria that should have been residing in the vaginal canal. However, due to mom’s history of antibiotics, birth control pills and regular sugar consumption, she would have lacked sufficient beneficial bacteria to impart to Mary during delivery anyway.
Mary was breastfed for sixteen months. Nonetheless, she suffered from chronic constipation beginning at five months of age. She was fed rice cereal with mineral oil per the advice of her pediatrician. Mineral oil, a petroleum-derived product, can be contaminated with cancer causing PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) and is known to be immunosuppressive.4 In the European Union’s Dangerous Substances Directive (UNECE 2004), in September 2004 banned all petroleum oils with the following caveat: “The classification as a carcinogen need not apply if the full refining history is known and it can be shown that the substance from which it is produced is not a carcinogen.” Her pediatric gastroenterologist concluded “nothing is wrong with Mary,” and confirmed the use of mineral oil.
After her first birthday, Mary began five years of chronic ear infections. Within this five-year period she was placed on ten different antibiotics. At the age of four, her tonsils and adenoids were removed. The tonsils were so enlarged due to chronic infections that they were touching one another. As a result, Mary’s snoring could be heard throughout the house.
FROM ANGER TO FLAT LINE
Up until Mary entered kindergarten, her parents thought she was just very strong willed and bright. Bright she was. Mary has an IQ of one hundred forty. It was soon after she began kindergarten that Mary’s parents realized that her anger and behavior were far from normal. By first grade she was throwing chairs and other objects in the classroom at children, especially boys. She would threaten homicide to others. Despite many attempts by patient teachers trying to redirect her behavior, Mary was uncontrollable. By the beginning of second grade, Mary was suspended.
Mary understood she was different from her peers. She would run down the hall at home flailing her arms and raging for two hours at a time. Often she crawled in between her mattress and box springs or buried herself under the bed for hours on end. Other times she would withdraw into herself and her books. (To date, at age thirteen, Mary has read over two thousand books.)
As her parents saw Mary “going dark,” they sought help from a local marriage and family therapist, who had a PhD in education with an emphasis on gifted children. At the same time they began working with several neurological developmental specialists and eventually the psychiatrist who diagnosed Mary as bipolar.
All agreed that Mary likely had a genius level IQ but, sadly, no long-term solutions for her disorder were offered. As her obstinate behavior grew and threats of suicide increased, their therapist felt something immediate needed to be done. After four hours of meetings with the psychiatrist, the mood disorder diagnosis was given. The psychiatrist was reluctant to prescribe anti-psychotic drugs to such a young, smart child—Mary’s parents agreed.
Many times Mary’s eyes would “flat line,” to use her father’s words. She would become completely disconnected and unable to communicate. Often after an hour and a half of head butting, biting, and raging, Mary would pass out and then wake with words of apology.
ADDRESSING THE GUT ISSUES
With full history in hand, we ran a comprehensive three-day stool test. Proper Lyme testing, which can be done through a specialty lab, is very costly and therefore, the parents chose to forego the testing and began addressing the diet and support for the gut. To best accomplish this, I recommended they use the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Diet as designed by neurologist Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. We decided to keep her nutritional supplementation to a minimum, using primarily fermented cod liver oil and high quality probiotics. After several months, we added various homeopathic remedies and eventually, some botanical products that have antimicrobial effects.
The GAPS Diet was a huge shift for this family of three whose diet had been primarily centered around refined carbohydrates with some lowfat dairy and meats. But in desperation, they made it a family affair. Within a few weeks, Mary’s rash began disappearing. Within three months of the GAPS Diet and our nutritional support, Mary’s raging ended.
We limited her nutritional supplementation to Bio-Kult, minerals, and Blue Ice Royal, a combination of X-factor butter oil and fermented cod liver oil. This combination was used often by Dr. Weston A. Price in treating many different states of deficiency. Bio-Kult helped us quickly populate Mary’s gut with much needed beneficial bacteria as she adapted to eating lacto-fermented foods on a daily basis. The Blue Ice Royal, a rich source of vitamins A and D, and daily bone broth, supplying amino acids and minerals, provided all the nutrients needed to heal the gut lining. I also included homeopathic drainage remedies to assist her body in slowly eliminating toxins in the gut and brain. Botanical tinctures were used to address infection in the body.
Mary and her parents agreed the two biggest challenges presented by the GAPS Diet are the elimination of gluten and casein. The elimination of these are essential in healing the gut, which is almost always required in healing psychiatric conditions.
GLUTEN AND THE BRAIN
One of the earliest works showing the effects of gluten on the brain was done by psychiatrist F. Curtis Dohan, who noted that schizophrenic patients had fewer hospitalizations when bread became unavailable during World War II. This trend was seen throughout Canada, the United States, Finland, Norway and Sweden. He found similar correlation in New Guinea, where schizophrenia was basically nonexistent in people on primitive diets until cultivated wheat products and beer made from barley (a gluten-containing grain) were introduced. At that point schizophrenia rates increased sixty-five fold.
One of the most extensive clinical trials of our time regarding food and behavior took place in Denmark. Fifty-five autistic children were placed on a gluten- and casein-free diet. Tremendous improvement in behavior was seen in these children. Dr. Dohan and his colleagues at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Philadelphia saw similar results in schizophrenic patients in the mid-sixties after putting patients on a gluten-free diet for four weeks. There was a reduced number of auditory hallucinations, delusion and less social detachment. Once gluten was reintroduced, the disturbing behaviors returned.5
Obviously not everyone who is gluten- or casein-sensitive exhibits the extreme symptoms of autism, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. But other health issues may ensue when the gut wall lining has been breached. Allergies, acne, eczema and gastrointestinal complaints are just a few of the symptoms that can point to gut dysbiosis.
I have found the GAPS program to be the body’s best support for healing. Prior to using the GAPS Diet in 2005, I saw the Specific Carbohydrate Diet assist many to a certain degree of wellness. The GAPS Diet, however, because of its emphasis on nutrient-dense, gut-healing foods like cod liver oil and bone broth, can bring complete healing to those with gut disorders.
A HAPPY ENDING
Several months after I began working with Mary, we re-tested her stool to find that the high levels of previously detected MRSA (methylresistant Staphylococcus aureus) had left her body. Over the next nine months her behavior gradually normalized. Exactly one year from beginning the GAPS Diet, Mary and her parents attended a family reunion where family members were shocked at Mary’s transformation.
Today, Mary is a vivacious, happy, normal thirteen-year-old, still reading books and bringing laughter to those around her. Her kind and loving spirit touches all who are blessed to know her. Mary is fortunate to have parents dedicated to her healing.
THE WISDOM OF HIPPOCRATES
Today, modern cultures are seeing soaring SUMMER 2012 Wise Traditions 49 rates of ADD, ADHD, allergies, autism and psychiatric disorders in the very young as refined carbohydrates, particularly modified gluten products rapidly produced in sixty minutes or less, and pasteurized, denatured dairy products continue to dominate diets. More and more research points to the wisdom of Hippocrates that “all disease begins in the gut.”
Hippocrates also offered this insight: “I know, too, that the body is affected differently by bread according to the manner in which it is prepared. It differs according as it is made from pure flour or meal with bran, whether it is prepared from winnowed or unwinnowed wheat, whether it is mixed with much water or little, whether well mixed or poorly mixed, overbaked or underbaked, and countless other points besides. The same is true of the preparation of barley meal. The influence of each process is considerable and each has a totally different effect from another. How can anyone who has not considered such matters and come to understand them possibly know anything of the diseases that afflict mankind? Each one of the substances of a man’s diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends.”
This truth is never more evident than today. We are bearing the consequences of departure from traditional food preparation in exchange for modern technology and so-called convenience. The fallout lies in the minds and guts of our young. The good news is our bodies are capable of self-healing. As we return to the wisdom of our ancient forefathers and foremothers, we can help our children to recapture their potential for wellness.