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Resistance to authority and antisocial behaviour by adult and children
Introduction
There are many conditions in Western industrialised societies today that were unheard of, or at least very rare, just a century ago. The same conditions are still unheard of in primitive peoples who do not have the 'benefits' of our knowledge. There is a very good reason for this: They eat what Nature intended; we don't. The diseases caused by our incorrect and unnatural diets are those featured on these pages.
Dietary causes of resistance to authority by adults and children:
High-carb diet — sugars and starches; low-cholesterol.Low cholesterol
Low blood cholesterol is also associated with aggression and antisocial behaviour. Typically, people whose cholesterol was 'healthily' below 5.04 mmol/L (200 mg/dl) were significantly more antisocial compared to others whose cholesterol was above 6.02 mmol/L (230mg/dl).[1] And mental patients with blood cholesterol around 7.55 mmol/L (290mg/dl) were less regressed and withdrawn than those whose cholesterol levels were around 4.80 mmol/L (185mg/dl).
. . . and crime in children
In the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) conducted in the USA between 1988 and 1994, blood cholesterol levels were measured in 4,852 children aged 6-16 years.[2] Psychosocial development was evaluated by interviewing the mother regarding her child's history of school suspension or expulsion and difficulty in getting along with others.
What the survey showed was that children whose cholesterol concentration was below 3.77 mmol/L (145 mg/dL) were almost three times more likely to have been suspended or expelled from schools than their peers with higher cholesterol levels.
The authors concluded that low total cholesterol may be a risk factor for aggression or a risk marker for other biologic variables that predispose to aggression.
Carbohydrate-based diets
Dr Jan Kwasniewski has treated patients with low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets for over 30 years. A few years ago, one of the speakers at a meeting of Dr Kwasniewski's followers was a reformed criminal who had spent most of his life either 'borrowing from' or 'paying back' society. The man's story was fascinating because he described an amazing transformation of a group of prisoners, including himself, who decided to adopt the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet as devised by Dr Kwasniewski. The group paid for the necessary food out of their own pocket money, and did so against the wishes of prison staff.
He told how most of the inmates following this diet for few months or more showed markedly reduced tendency to violence and reported a change in their general view on the world, in particular in terms of their plans after their release.
The prison staff noted also the change in the inmates' behaviour. The prison director, together with Dr Kwasniewski, proposed to the ministry of internal affairs of Poland that a larger dietary trial be run in the prison to test what had been 'anecdotally' observed in this small group.
Their request was refused!
Several other recent scientific investigations have also linked criminality to diets high in sugar and carbohydrates in adults. Jails are notorious for their problems with defiance of authority and bad behaviour. It's not surprising, I suppose: jails are full of criminals. Nevertheless, trials have been conducted into the effects of changing diets on inmates. Usually, these have switched inmates to a low sugar diet with no fizzy drinks, and inmates have received vegetables instead of sweets. And the results? A significant drop in aggressive behaviour.
Learning from history
Perhaps again we can learn from history: In the 1940s a New York doctor named Joseph Wilder found that low blood sugar levels in adults produced mental symptoms such as depression, anxiety, irritability, slow mental processes, dullness and difficulty in making decisions. The effects of low blood sugar in children were considerably more serious.[3]
Children with this condition would be neurotic, psychopathic and have criminal tendencies, suffer anxiety, run away, be aggressive and destructive. Dr. Wilder wrote: 'In its simplest form, it is the tendency to deny everything, contradict everything, refuse everything at any price . . . It is no wonder that a considerable number of criminal and semi?criminal acts have been observed in children in hypoglycaemic (low blood?sugar) states, ranging from destructiveness or violation of traffic regulations all the way to bestiality, arson and homicide.' The low blood?sugar/criminality link has since been confirmed many times.
Despite this, speculation still persists about whether sugar consumption affects behaviour in children. In 1986 a study investigated the effect of sugar on the behaviour of preschool children.[4] Children were tested individually using a double-blind, crossover design. On separate mornings each child received six ounces of fruit juice, sweetened on one morning with sugar and on the other with an artificial sweetener. The children were observed for an hour and a half following the drinks, during which time they were given alternating 15-minute sessions of work on structured tasks and 15-minute sessions of free play.
Following the sugar drink the children's performance in the structured testing sessions went down, and they demonstrated more 'inappropriate behaviour' during free play. These differences in behaviour were most pronounced approximately 45 to 60 minutes after the drinks. This study provided strong objective evidence in young children of a rather subtle, yet significant, time-dependent behaviour effect of dietary sugar. The actual cause was the children were in a state of hypoglycaemia caused by an overproduction of insulin as a response to the sugar load. But all dietary carbohydrates can cause hypoglycaemia if they form the major part of a meal.
Today, children are eating more sugar and high-carbohydrate foods than ever before in history — and, judging from reports in the press, committing more crimes at ever younger ages. Could it be that the two are connected? Dr. Wilder realised that low blood?sugar was not caused by low intake of sugar, but by the reverse. He said: 'Apparently, too copious feeding of sugar may, in the long run, cause an over?function of the islet cells of the pancreas and increase the tendency to hypoglycaemia; on the other hand, there are cases in which a diet extremely poor in carbohydrates and sugars may improve or even cure the condition.'
The 'healthy' dietary guidelines developed for adults are being extended to children, and 'healthy' meals are promoted in schools to curb obesity. But with the roles of carbs in hypoglycaemia and of serum cholesterol in the neurodevelopment of children so poorly recognised, the result could well be the reverse of that intended.
The point is that criminality increases because, despite the rhetoric, we are not tough on crime and its causes at all. Our government merely pays lip service to the idea while the public pays in monetary terms. If we were serious about wanting to reduce crime, one of the first things we would do is seriously consider reversing the current 'healthy eating' advice.
References
[1]. Engleberg H. Low serum cholesterol and suicide. Lancet 1992; 339: 727-9
[2]. Zhang J, et al. Association of Serum Cholesterol and History of School Suspension among School-age Children and Adolescents in the United States. Am J Epidemiol 2005; 161:691-699.
[3]. Wilder J. Nutrition and mental deficiency. Nervous Child 1944; 3: 174.
[4]. Goldman JA, et al. Behavioral effects of sucrose on preschool children. J Abnorm Child Psychol 1986; 14: 565-77.
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