Malnutrition and The Criminal State of Mind
by Jay Patrick
From "Let's Live" August 1975
Crime of all kinds now runs rampant in out society and has doubled since 1960 – as of 1975.
Capital punishment doesn't work and/or is unconstitutional.
Imprisonment is most expensive and often makes criminals worse when they leave than they were before they came in.
Most cases go unsolved, most criminals unpunished.
Legislators wring their hands; Law enforcers demand more money, which they now rarely get.
Citizens, when they can, are buying more guns to defend themselves, their mates, or their associates.
Known psychotics are released back into society, sometimes to roam about the country murdering as they go.
Most psychiatrists are hopelessly inadequate in this situation, knowing only two approaches: dope or talk, neither of which really works.
Is there any way out there? A few people believe there is.
***********
It is not the criminal mind but the criminal state of mind to which society must direct its attention. There is a difference, said Dr. Abram Hoffer, biochemist, physician and psychiatrist at the 1975 annual seminar of the Canadian Schizophrenia Association meeting in Calgary Alberta.
"Nearly everyone," he added, "has felt like snuffing out the life of some offensive character that he has encountered. Such occasional feelings are almost the norm.
But something more has usually happened to one's state of mind when he actually commits an act of violence. Frequently he is suffering from the misperceptions of schizophrenia, which affects at least 3% of the population.
Schizophrenia, these orthomolecular psychiatrists will tell you, no longer means split personality, something that really doesn't happen. Rather, it is now used in a very general sense, for want of a better term, to describe a syndrome, a complex of symptoms which, they believe, are due to metabolic biochemical imbalance of the body, which shows up, inevitably, in that segment we call the brain.
Each person has his own individualized reasons that cause him to slump into sub-clinical pellagra, the introductory stage of schizophrenia.
[pel·lag·ra n. A disease caused by a deficiency of niacin and protein in the diet and characterized by skin eruptions, digestive and nervous system disturbances, and eventual mental deterioration.]
In this state he may suffer, especially under high stress, momentary lapses into insanity, as he feels that the world is closing in on him – and he must fight violently to extricate himself.
Genetically, we now know, many people are more susceptible to loss in later life of homeostasis, biochemical balance. Add to this inheritance, bad food, countless mistakes of living, pollution, stress, and the results of faulty diagnosis and treatment by drug-oriented physicians – and you give the body a monumental challenge. It is indeed, a challenge to which none of us is fully equal.
It is one of the characteristics of one who succumbs into acute pellagra (which might be a much better name for schizophrenia) that he believes many hallucinatory experiences are really happening to him.
He may have decided, for instance that foreign agents are conspiring to ruin him. He may be sure that he hears strange sounds or voices telling him what to do. He smells bad odors, which are non-existent, feels mysterious pressures on his body, believes that worms are crawling around inside him. Or, he may enjoy a sense of great euphoria, as his body seems to be transported into some fairy-land state. Any one or most of such misperceptions may occur. Any one or all of the senses may be affected. These are now described by psychologists and psychiatrists as altered states of consciousness.
Some 10% of the population of the United States is held to be at some time afflicted by mental illness to an extent requiring treatment. However, maybe nearly 100% of the population is at some time afflicted by mental illness, since an outstanding conclusion of this new knowledge is that any bodily illness is often accompanied by some mental dysfunction. With the mind out of kilter, even temporarily, any one of us might be willing or even eager to commit a criminal act.
Low Blood Sugar and Criminal Violence
Dr. Ralph Bolten reported in a study of a group of Peruvian peasants that on a low protein, high carbohydrate diet these people were extremely aggressive. Such people fight because they feel better when they are fighting. It makes them feel better, because the adrenalin starts pouring out and drives up their blood sugar, so that at last, their poor, tired brains get some fuel. Dr. Hoffer discussed this phenomenon at length.
"Such people are also very paranoid. They injure and insult themselves. They have a high incidence of stealing, rape, arson, abortion, slander, and homicide. In one Peruvian village, half the household heads were directly or indirectly involved in homicide. The incidence of rape is 50 per 100,000.
"These people were tested for blood sugar, and their levels were found to be as low as 50% of what we regard as a good level. To keep going, they chew a lot of cola and drink a lot of alcohol.
"We have found the same thing with American Indians, Canadian Eskimos, and Australian Aborigines."
"But, doctor, what about Americans (North & South?) and Canadians?"
"We feel that this condition of malnutrition applies to a large segment of both populations. It's just a little more evident among those who end up being classed as criminals.
"So, I feel that a large portion of our criminals (the word should be italicized) are ill. For example, I was invited by Dr. Glen Green to examine what he considered 12 of the worst, most aggressive criminals in the Prince Albert, Sask penitentiary. I found that at least nine of them were sever, chronic, paranoid schizophrenics."
"Doctor: Would you describe most violent criminals as sugar addicts?"
"I would. Many of them seem to live principally on candy bars, Cokes, coffee, alcohol. So they are getting rotten general nutrition, which further aggravates their condition, as their blood sugar levels are on a daily roller coaster."
"Do the prisons have any understanding of the problem?"
"Absolutely none. They only make their condition worse, since they usually know almost nothing about nutrition. They frequently furnish a low protein, high carbohydrate diet loaded with sugar, plus considerable coffee."
B and C Vitamins Can Normalize Minds
"They supply no supplemental Vitamin C, the outstanding anti-stress agent and none of the nerve relaxing B vitamins such as B-1 and B-3 (niacin). Niacin, you know, helps these people in many ways. It makes their misperceptions go away, as Dr. Osmond and I discovered some 20 years ago. But it also tends to give them a feeling of well being, as it stimulates the circulation of the blood, releasing histamine and heparin.
"Of course the heparin gives a negative charge to the red blood cells, so that they are dispersed and can then go through the tiniest capillaries of the brain, helping the prisoner to think." [See Zeta Potential]
"What about niacin with the sugar transport system?"
"There again, it is important, since it works with magnesium, and as Dr. Henry Schroeder has pointed out, with chromium, something prisoners are not likely to get enough of. About 87% of it has been refined out of the wheat used to make the emasculated bread they serve them."
"But, doctor, do you believe that the high level of adrenalin released into the blood stream when these people get excited may result in the production of even more of these mind altering compounds, thus potentiating the misperceptions, the wild actions of many schizophrenics?"
"Yes, I do. The excitement causes them to produce more adrenalin. This is converted into more adrenochrome, which then throws them even more into a psychopathic state."
"One third of the prisoners I saw could be classified as having sub-clinical pellagra, which I now feel should be identified as allergy of the brain. No doubt, the percentage is higher is higher now, because of the increase in juvenile offenders sentenced, based on the nature of the crimes committed by them.
"Whether we describe their ailments as sub-clinical pellagra, adolescent behavior problem, schizoid behavior pattern, or chronic alcoholic hallucinosis matters little. The treatment, principally correction of the diet, is what matters.
"Many of these prisoners have strange experiences. The floors and walls seem to move. The patient usually knows that they do not really, so he complains of dizziness and headache. Unless the doctor asks him about perception changes, he will never find out what the prisoner's real complaint is.
"It is useless to prescribe drugs for these prisoners. Tranquilizers, painkillers, and antidepressants often cause reactions, making patients worse. Yet it is the usual procedure, so long as the patient complains, to give him a succession of drugs, until he either stops complaining or is so "stoned" that he cannot complain and is, therefore, no administrative problem.
"Many of the prisoners are alcoholics and/or drug addicts, and they know how to rationalize, to figure out an excuse for everything they do. They are continually demanding more liberties – and getting them. If they had the self-discipline and the knowledge as to what they need in the way of exercise, good food, and avoidance of alcohol, stimulants, and cigarettes, this might be great. But they have no such discipline and no such knowledge, so few of them are ever rehabilitated, and more and more end up behind bars."
Allergic Addictions
"What, Doctor Green, do you think leads them into crime?"
"Well, they seem to go first into sub-clinical pellagra, then into schizophrenia, and finally, they develop the psychopathic personality. But there are many types of addition. We know the alcoholic, but what about the carboholic who wants sugar and other carbohydrates, the coffeeholic, the Cokeaholic, and even the milkaholic, who is allergic to milk?
"Usually the very thing to which they are addicted is the cause of their allergy, which affects the Central Nervous System of which the brain is a part. They have developed deeply rooted living and eating habits, which prisons make no intelligent effort to correct.
"The pattern seems to begin in early childhood. Very often the baby is a feeding problem, colicky, or turns night into day. The next step may well be skin changes, hives, eczema, or photosensitivity. These may clear. Then comes the behavior problems, hyperactivity, fighting, smart-aleck stuff that teachers abhor. The next step is vandalism, trying alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.
"Of course, at every stage you have social workers, teachers, parents, and other interested persons trying to get the child to cooperate. But by then he will not listen to reason. His mind, his ability to reason is gone.
"The next step is breaking the law – and eventually being sent to prison to be 'rehabilitated'. But this is a vain hope because in prison things are the same as on the outside, except the patient-prisoner now gets everything for free. All he loses is his freedom, which he doesn't really want anyway!
"The food offered these prisoners is excellent, except that they can also get the junk. Every meal is planned to give a balanced diet, meats in abundance, vegetables and fruits, fresh frozen, or preserved. There is desert twice a day. But I've seen men pass up beef stew in favor of white bread, pie and a pint of coffee. They take as much bread as they feel they can eat, often 6 to 10 slices at a meal. They can purchase chocolate bars, pop, and candy to the limit of their budget, and many of them do. There is a limit of fresh fruits and vegetables, though, because the boys use them to make home brew, as a never ending game of hide and seek goes on."
"So you believe refined carbohydrates are much involved in the problems of these prisoners?"
"I sure do. Fifty years ago we did not have this excessive use of flour, sugar, and starch. Many of us past 45 had very little refined carbohydrate other than white bread until about 1950. By that time Canadians could and did start buying more whisky, coffee, and smoking more. Before that few of us could afford these things.
"So we had 25 years to deplete our ability to handle carbohydrates, to get arteriosclerosis, coronary disease, diabetes, depression, tension, anxiety, fatigue, and insomnia. When you are in this state, your mind functions at perhaps 50% of capacity, and you become less careful and less caring.
"Those under 45 have had greater access to sugar, flour and starch, to Coke, chips, chocolate, pop, coffee, and alcohol. Now, marijuana is the added attraction. The children of today are 'beat' before they start.
"But there is another problem in prison, in that the meals are not rotated. They get just about the same thing to eat every day. A very high percentage of the men are allergic to milk, but they go on drinking it everyday. They should be allowed to have it only every fourth day, if at all. Corn, wheat, and milk are the chief sources of allergy, you know, in that order. Yet no effort is ever made to help these men with their allergies, which are often allergies of the brain, and in a high percentage of cases are responsible for their criminal behavior."
"Do they offer such food in all the Canadian prisons?"
"All the Canadian prisons are the same. They are federal prisons and they spend a lot of money on them. It costs $20,000 a year per prisoner to keep them in a maximum security prison such as this one.'
"That's an enormous expense – and so very much wasted!"
"Yes, and the whole situation is getting worse and worse, as they are less and less able to control them. Even 15 or 20 years ago they were able to maintain much better discipline – and a lot less men had to be put back in prison."
I later went over Dr. Green's forthright remarks with Dr. Hoffer. He agreed that it is not enough for the prison to offer good food, although it's my guess that not even half of the prisons in the U.S. do. If they also make all sorts of junk food available, it is evident; the prisoner will cling to the very eating habits that may have been the major factor in getting in the pen in the first place!
A few years ago the Smithsonian Institute sent researchers into the Dominican Republic to study the eating habits of the natives. They were amazed to learn that most of them were bordering on scurvy, often ingesting as little as 15 mg of Vitamin C daily, although they had fruits and vegetables growing wild all about them! They wouldn't eat thee healthful things their bodies so badly needed.
Wild animals seem to know what to eat, but that big brain of man's does not always serve him very well.
Forty-three inmates and hostages died in Attica, N.Y. prison in 1971 after a major uprising. Anyone who reads even a third of Tom Wicker's book, "A time to Die" can understand the inevitability of the confrontation.
"Psychological brutality also includes prison's appalling of amenity – one shower and one bar of soap and one roll of toilet paper per month in Attica before the uprising; ...
"Meals – budgeted at 63 cents per day per man in Attica in 1971 – were starchy, ill-prepared, monotonous, heavy on pork ...
Everywhere, every minute – like the air you breathe – there is the threat of violence beneath the surface ... gray and swift and ...
It's a loathsome situation, so most of us do not want to hear about it or think about it. But because we don't and because there is not enough intelligent effort expended in their behalf, who knows when he may find one of these derelicts of society coming through his window, or shoving a gun in his ribs.
What Can Be Done?
So it becomes evident that we are going to have to work in all directions simultaneously, if we want to get out of the hole. We have to stop breeding more criminals. We have to learn to care for our young, at least as well as the wild animals care for theirs. Then, as for those already in prison, it is evident that we are going to have to establish and maintain for them the strict eating and living habits that are essential to their recovery.
Just ponder the geometry of it. We have initiated a chain reaction that can destroy our society, our world.
The wonder of it all is that crime doesn't increase 100% with each passing year – and the divorce rate too!
Yes, we are using a secret weapon against the Russians. We have helped Pepsi Cola to get started over there. This will steadily weaken them, although it will take these backward people a long time to catch up with us! Our kids can afford ten times as many Cokes as theirs!
But there may be a few caches. Do you know that each of us may be under high stress at any given moment, depending on what gets to the brain, only a few grams of glucose away from temporary insanity?
Dr. E. Cheraskin will tell you that it is utter nonsense for anyone to think that he can have good teeth and gums without a reasonably well body. The same applies to a good mind.