They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning. Dr Richardson Alex
omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are easily destroyed by ‘oxidation’. Deficiencies of vitamin E and these fatty acids usually go hand in hand—and can contribute to some movement and coordination disorders.10 Vitamin E deficiency may also result in fragility of the red blood cells which carry oxygen around your body.
More superficially, you may have seen vitamin E added to skin care products—aimed at helping keep your skin looking and feeling younger, or minimizing scar tissue. It’s probably more effective to provide it from the inside, via a healthy diet that provides many other skin-nourishing nutrients! And you need to know that unless you have enough vitamin C with it, vitamin E won’t work—and could even have the opposite effect. Basically, a whole range of different antioxidants work together—so you need them together, in the way they are usually provided by many natural foods. Vitamin E is found in wheatgerm, whole grains, seeds and nuts (including nut butters), unrefined vegetable oils and some fruits and vegetables. (Commercially produced bread without whole grains contains virtually no vitamin E, as milling destroys it. The same goes for refined oils—and Chapter 8 will give you more good reasons to avoid these.)
Vitamin K
Vitamin K is needed to help with blood-clotting.
Vitamin K activates some of the proteins involved in bone growth, and helps your blot clot when you cut or bruise yourself. It’s found in soya, broccoli and spinach. If you have ‘good’ gut flora, some of these bacteria produce vitamin K for you.
Water-soluble Vitamins
Vitamin C and the B vitamins are water-soluble. Unlike A, D, E and K, they can’t be stored by your body, so regular supplies are needed each and every day.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an all-round antioxidant and also essential to help build healthy bones, cartilage and teeth, to heal wounds, and a whole lot more.
A deficiency of vitamin C results in scurvy, a nasty disease that probably killed more than 2 million sailors on long voyages until it was discovered that a little lemon juice (or home-grown cress!) could prevent this completely. Vitamin C helps your immune system to protect you from viruses and bacteria. It’s also a natural laxative. If your child is deficient in vitamin C, you might notice she’s tired, may be prone to infections, any wounds are slow to heal, and her gums bleed easily.
Vitamin C is found in fruit (especially citrus fruits) and vegetables (especially leafy green ones). Don’t be fooled by artificial vitamin C (ascorbic acid) added to soft drinks: many contain negligible amounts, and these drinks may also contain sodium benzoate—a common preservative that reacts with vitamin C to produce the toxic chemical benzene. (See Chapter 6 for more details on how this brain poison has been found in many soft drinks at up to 8 times the maximum that’s legally permitted in drinking water.) The message is: get vitamin C from fresh fruits and vegetables—as many different types as possible!
Vitamin B
Vitamin B is actually a whole range of vitamins. All are used as co-enzymes – that is, they help other enzymes to perform numerous tasks around your brain and body. They’re important for energy-production, maintaining a healthy heart, growth and reproduction of cells, and various mental functions including attention, thinking skills, coordination and memory.
The B vitamins all work together, so they’re known as the ‘B Spectrum’. I can’t begin to do justice to them all here, although I’ve singled out a few for illustration. You can find plenty of details elsewhere if you want more information on individual members of the B family.11
Vitamin B Complex is essential for:
normal growth and development
energy-production
functioning of the brain and nervous system
functioning of the liver, kidneys and other organs
health of the heart and circulation
maintenance of other body tissues
digestion
immune function
protein, fat and carbohydrate metabolism
manufacture of red blood cells
endocrine and hormonal systems
cell division and DNA repair
numerous enzyme systems
Better Nutrition Can Reduce Antisocial Behaviour
Results of a study by my colleague Bernard Gesch,12 funded by the charity ‘Natural Justice’, revealed the remarkable effects of micronutrients on behaviour. This was the most definitive study yet showing the impact of diet on antisocial behaviour, including violence: a rigorously controlled trial involving 231 young offenders at a high-security prison in the UK.
Half the young men received daily multivitamin and fatty acid supplements (providing micronutrients only at doses close to recommended daily intakes). The others received identical-looking placebo capsules. Each prisoner was followed for up to nine months of dietary treatment, and his rate of offending during that time was compared with what had prevailed over the preceding nine months.
Offences fell by more than 25 per cent in the group receiving active supplements. When analyses were restricted to those who actually took the supplements for at least two weeks, the reduction was 34 per cent; and for violent offences, it was 37 per cent. In each case, there was no significant change in offending rates for those on placebo.
We Have a Choice
The food provided by the prison in Gesch’s trial met official dietary requirements. The problem was that ‘poor food choices’ by prisoners compromised their nutritional status.13 Exactly the same problem applies to children, mental health patients and a very large proportion of the general population.
Previous research had already indicated that improving diet could improve the behaviour of young offenders. In one study more than 20 years ago involving 3,000 imprisoned juveniles,14 snack foods were replaced with healthier options, reducing the inmates’ consumption of refined and sugary foods. There followed a 21 per cent reduction in antisocial behaviour over 12 months, a 100 per cent reduction in suicides, a 25 per cent reduction in assaults, and a 75 per cent reduction in the use of restraints. Although this study didn’t use the rigorous placebo-controlled design employed by the Natural Justice trial, why weren’t these findings followed up earlier? And why won’t the Government—even now—put funding into doing something about this?
I hope you can see that the B vitamins (all of them) are vital to your child’s overall health and well-being—and yours. General tiredness or lack of energy, lack of concentration, loss of appetite or skin problems are among the first signs of B deficiencies.
Some New Names for Pellagra?
Pellagra is a nasty disease caused by lack of vitamin B3 (sometimes known as niacin or ‘nicotinic acid’). In its extreme form, pellagra is characterized by what doctors have nicknamed ‘the three Ds’—dermatitis (burning or itchy, scaly skin, sometimes with mouth inflammation), diarrhoea and dementia. Mental function can be seriously impaired.
Children who in the past were diagnosed with mild or ‘sub-clinical’