The McCarrison Society - NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition

NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition

Article Index
NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition
Chairman's comments
GHB Special Report On The McCarrison Society
GHB:Report by Conference Organiser Rev Simon House, MA
GHB: Preconception to late adolescence:
GHB: From past to present: evolution and epigenetics
GHB: CLEAVE LECTURE Nutrition, the brain and mental ill health
GHB: Our changing diet; deficits and disorders
GHB: Genomic imprinting for brain development and behaviour
GHB: 'Brainfoods': Modulating brain structure and function
GHB: The effects of maternal anxiety or stress during pregnancy
GHB: Cornerstones in the Psychobiological Development of Mankind:
GHB: A psycho-soma integration perspective
GHB: 'New Parenting', psychotherapy, prenatal
GHB: Attention deficit disorders
GHB: Priorities in Research Funding
GHB:Into the future; avoiding the cost of folly
GHB: References
News
Mind What You Eat
McCarrison meeting with Sustain
Future Events

Page 17 of 22

GHB:Into the future; avoiding the cost of folly.

Jack Winkler: Director of Food Health Research, London – then reviewed some of the key points that speakers had made, asking “and where now?” He suggested the figure of €386 billion was half the real cost of mental ill-health since it excluded the cost of maintaining 10% of the working population on incapacity benefit, a large proportion of whom suffer from mental ill-health.

African politicians recognise that malnourished women leads to children’s malnourished brains which leads to failure to develop economically – a lesson for the developed world. It is vital to bring in the agronomists and economists to have an impact on governments.

He robustly challenged all present asking what action each of us was going to take reduce these dire effects on the human race? Scientists, medical practitioners, researchers needed to ally with other groups – economists, geneticists, agriculturalists – and infiltrate the corridors of power! Sustain was wanting to accept our greater knowledge of this field and they can coordinate the pressure.

Ian Pike of the fishing industry explained their recycling of unsaleable fish into high-standard farmed fish rich in omega3s, but asked Joe Hibbeln whether we could protect omega6/3 ratio which when more than 6:1 prevented chain elongation. Could soy and other omega6 foods be restricted to protect health and economise on fish stocks? Hibbeln replied that research is needed to prove its safe effectiveness.

Professor Keverne then expressed concern that too much was being attributed to nutrition before the neocortex was even developed, which did not begin till the age of three. And the brain then awaited a later stage of remodelling between 17 and 20 years, when the prefrontal cortex and superior temporal cortex develop power of control over the hypothalamus and pituitary, regions affecting emotions and the body. Whereas 100 years ago 17-20 was the age of puberty, today puberty is around 10-14, so that people are now bearing children before the brain has matured to handle them. In girls reaching puberty at 9, the most obvious sign is fat; leptin, the hormone of reproduction is also the hormone of appetite and fat. So for improvements to the brain, he recommended, we really need to focus on control of obesity.

Responding to comments on the ‘novelty’ of the evidence of mental health’s dependency on omega6/3 balance, and the trivialisation of the significant evidence of maternal/foetal/infant nutrition on brain development, Dr. Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry, described how the extensive evidence of powerful effects of prenatal nutrition on the brain from two powerful studies in 1973 led to combined World Health Organisation and Food & Agriculture Organisation (WHO-FAO) recommendations on increasing the omega6/3 ratio but, being against current industrial policy, these were never acted on. These studies were animal trials and pathology, then corroborated by human studies. Decades have been wasted and the problem has got hugely worse. Crawford quoted a number of the many studies in evidence. Would they yet bring governments to act now?

The suggestion that late development of the neocortex meant that prenatal nutrition could not affect later performance and behaviour conflicts with all this evidence. Moreover, much of an individual’s performance and behaviour relates to the brainstem and limbic system which develop prenatally, and even if only the barest rudiments of the neocortex are laid down so early, such impairments are often not redeemable later.

Dr. Glover asked about vegetarian mothers, believing that despite their large fish consumption, Japan had a high incidence of mental health disorder. This does not tally with Joe Hibbeln’s figures, replied Crawford, and India had 70% of the world’s blindness, 50% low birthweight and much mental retardation.

Concluding, Ludwig Janus and Michael Crawford agreed that the resistance of society to adopting the logical response to the problem reflected the neurotic’s aversion to treatment, and called for collaboration to tackle the problems with specifically designed projects. Professor Crawford thanked everyone for their contributions for such a successful day.

SHH

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