Nutrition and the Mind
By: Marvin Heikkila
Imagine you are a clinical practitioner. A well-established professional man, happily
married for 12 years comes into your office for help. One evening after
celebrating his birthday
together, he and his wife were relaxing with a drink in their living room. The husband states that he doesn’t like the
taste of his drink
anymore and was just too tired from the long day to enjoy
it. Now without reason or warning, his
wife shouts, “YOU’RE TOO TIRED!” and then jumps up, grabs
one his golf trophies
off the fireplace mantel and throws it through the living room window while
continuing shouting at him, accusing him of everything imaginable-
selfishness,
neglect, abuse. Then she runs crying
from the room screaming and sobbing, slams the door as she runs out of the
house and gets into her car. She
yells
“Happy Birthday” and then speeds off.
She comes home several hours later, goes to bed and remains there most
of the next day. He asks you, a trained
clinical practitioner, what you think could be going on with his wife to
suddenly act like that. Was it a mental
problem or a physical problem? Your
reply was…………
well let’s see what he says after we delve into the interaction
between nutrition and the mind. I am
going to persuade you that nutrition, not only the right amounts
and types of
food, but also the right combination of nutrition for each genetically unique
person is vital to maintain a healthy body and mind.
Every function of the body involves a chemical process,
whether it is physical or mental activity, even just breathing and feeling.
When we get sick, we are
suffering from a metabolic upset, a chemical imbalance
that has caused our body to become weakened and lose its capacity to fend off
infections. The brain is
especially susceptible to changes in body
chemistry. Look at some of the processes
that affect our physical and mental well-being.
A thyroid deficiency can cause
a person to feel exhausted all of the
time. An over productive thyroid
produces the opposite effect, while also changing personality traits by
producing anxiety,
excitability, and nervousness. A lack of Vitamin B may lead to such serious
diseases as pellagra and beriberi that can affect brain metabolism, producing
symptoms of mental disorders. You’ve
probably heard the comparison of our body to a furnace, each needing fuel to
burn. What do you think would provide
the
longest burning, hottest fuel to heat a house: a few crumpled wads of
newspaper or a solid log of oak? That
question might seem like a no-brainer to you but was
designed to help you
understand the importance of needing proper fuel. Our body doesn’t use paper or wood to burn,
but a simple kind of sugar, specifically
glucose, which is circulated in our
blood as blood sugar to all of the body‘s tissues such as the heart, liver,
muscles and brain. Although glucose can
be directly
obtained from honey or grapes, the body manufactures most of its
requirements from other carbohydrates (potatoes, bread and cereals), milk sugar
(lactose), fruit
sugar (fructose), as well as from meat and other protein
foods. In addition to glucose, many
cells in the body can burn fat for energy, though it is not the fuel they
prefer. The brain however, relies
heavily on glucose for its energy and cannot switch to fat when sugar is not
available. The brain is only 2 ½ percent of our total
body weight, but requires
25% of the total glucose the whole body consumes. If the blood sugar level is too low, insufficient
glucose is available to the brain and
results in loss of emotional control in
forms from simple nervousness, unexplained weeping and depression all the way
to the urge to smash something, anything.
Blood sugar level is directly maintained by the interaction of all of
the nutrients we consume. All of the
carbohydrates (starches and sugars) and half of the proteins
you eat are
converted directly into glucose and resemble the crumbled up wads of paper
thrown into the fire to provide instant energy.
The presence of fat (butter
and
the fat contained in meat) in our diet directly also influences the blood sugar
level. Our body typically stores enough glucose to last about 4 hours. After that,
unless there are other stored
fuels, the fire goes out and you are all worn out. Protein, which is more slowly digested is
converted into glycogen, liver sugar and is
stored between meals in the liver
and released when needed. After our
4-hour supply of glucose is used up, the liver releases more to continue the fueling
process.
There is a need to regulate the proper balance of our three
basic nutrients, carbohydrates, proteins and fats since there is an
interdependence of all three nutrients
to successfully produce the needed
glucose amounts to operate our body. Unless
there is sugar being burned in the body from carbohydrates and/or fats,
proteins
cannot be converted into either liver sugar or blood sugar. So neither a low carbohydrate, high protein
diet, or a high carbohydrate, low protein nor totally fat-free
diet provide for
optimal energy production. The brain
alone needs 500 calories of carbohydrates per day. Each person’s oxidation rate, the rate at
which their cells
turn sugar into energy, varies with inherited genetic
differences and explains why different people eating the same “balanced diet”
will derive different energy levels
and health benefits from the same
food. We are each as unique in our fuel
utilizing processes, as are our facial features and fingerprints. We are much the same in
many ways, but also
differ in many small ways. Many are
affected by allergies to various chemicals, and other things, causing
respiratory, digestive, or other
reactions.
Others are highly affected by certain drugs causing violent and
sometimes deadly side effects, while others are helped from the same drugs. In each
case, the drugs, chemicals or other
external stimuli cause either a helpful or harmful effect on the people exposed
to them depending upon their genetic disposition
to the items.
Are you still wondering about the wife who threw her
husband’s golf trophy through the window and the cause of her actions? After some probing of the husband, the
clinical practitioner discovered that the couple had returned home a month
earlier from a trip to Central America and had taken precautions to avoid the stomach
and bowel infections that often attack tourists in the tropics by taking sulfa
drugs immediately as they got off the plane and the wife was still taking the
drug as an
extra precaution after returning from the trip. While taking the drug it was possible to eat
certain foods and drink liquids that normally contained harmful bacteria
without suffering the usual effects of becoming very ill from them. But not only does the sulfa drug prevent bad
bacteria from growing in the intestines of the
person taking the drug, it also
prevents any good bacteria from populating, which feed on starches eaten and
synthesize a number of vitamins –riboflavin and
biotin (both B vitamins) and
vitamin K, particularly important to maintaining a healthy nervous system. All of these vitamins cannot be taken in
large enough doses
as oral doses of vitamins or are in as a natural form as the
type manufactured by the body to meet all of the body’s needs. Normally if a person has this type of
problem, a cessation of the offending drug and a few large helpings of natural
yogurt, a source of good bacteria in the form of acidophilus is enough to
return the
process back to normal in about two hours. But it didn’t work in the case of this woman.
Her blood oxidation level still showed a 30% reduction below her optimum operating
level. The man’s wife then stated that
she had gained some weight on their
vacation and had gone on a zero
carbohydrate diet after returning home.
The reaction she had as a violent outburst was the result of a
combination of two things:
diminished
digestion and synthesizing of B and K vitamins and a complete absence of
carbohydrates essential for direct conversion to glucose and the conversion
of
protein to sugar causing the brain to malfunction resulting in a personality
change, an emotional/mental imbalance and violent actions.
Now I’m going to mention another important component in
maintaining a healthy body, but maybe contrary to thinking about keeping a fire
going…..WATER! Our
bodies are made up of
nearly 75% water. Water not only is the
means for making the blood thin enough to flow in our veins and carry nutrients
in the form of glucose
and oxygen to all of our cells, but it also carries away
the spent fuel waste and toxins produced during the process. Imagine having an indoor furnace without a
chimney! You’d have a house that was so
smoky that you couldn’t stand to live in it!
The same would be the case if you had no way to rid the body of its
burned
waste products. How much water do
we need to drink every day? A good rule
of thumb is to divide your body weight in half and use that number in ounces as
your
requirement. In other words, if you
weigh180 lbs. you would need half of that, or 90 ounces, approximately nine -
10 oz. glasses every day to maintain proper fluid
levels.
There are many other possible negative effects from other
combinations of external stimuli and out of balance nutrition, but I want you
to leave today understanding
the inseparable connection of the mind and body in
relation to proper nutrition and urge you to exercise 3-4 times per week, eat
well, drink plenty of water, avoid
harmful chemicals and drugs and eventually
come to know yourself enough to find your perfect balance of all the right
nutrients for your body makeup for optimal
health and energy.