As you'll see, some of the statements should be taken with a grain of salt, or might rub you the wrong way as they did me, but the overall nutrition message is so important.
If just one troubled or depressed teen or child benefits from this, it's worth the time spent reading and sharing it.
By Dr. Bruce West of HealthAlert.com
THERE WILL BE MORE MASS MURDERS
“Do you know a teen? Or better yet, do you own one? If so, help him or her live a long and healthy life. Make sure he or she eats foods rich in B vitamins—like lean meat, green leafy vegetables, organic eggs, etc. If he or she refuses, get them a good, natural, whole-food vitamin B supplement.”
Health Alert, Vol. 4, No. 8 (August, 1987!)
Remember the term B-Complex Deficiency Syndrome, or BCDS. Over the past 35 years, I’ve cared for more than 10,000 adolescent and preadolescent patients suffering from BCDS. Based on my experience and standard physiology textbooks, there is no doubt that it is the cause of much of today’s emotional and psychological problems with kids. Because of this, it is one of the underlying causes of the horrendous violence in teens that eventually plays itself out as mass murders.
Today one of the world’s top talk show hosts was mocking a group for claiming that there is a connection between diet, nutrition, and mental illness which can lead to mass murders on a scale of the latest in Connecticut. As I have said before, I wish all talk show hosts and politicians would stick to what they know (most often too little) and stay out of what they are ignorant of (too often too much). Diet, nutrition, and mental illness are three topics of which almost all are ignorant.
The Diet-Mental Health Connection
There would be no connection between young people’s mental health and disasters like that in Connecticut if young people did not eat the typical or standard American diet (SAD). This diet is filled with non-foods that are primarily carbohydrates, most of which are refined, full of sugar, and highly processed. These non-foods are nearly devoid of any B vitamins and omega-3 fats— essential brain and heart foods. Because of this, the standard American diet which is sponsored and even developed by the processed food industry and supported by the U.S. government is the cause B-Complex Deficiency Syndrome or BCDS.
As young people become more and more nutritionally deficient from their diet and BCDS, they become deeply confounded, emotionally unstable, and psychologically damaged. This condition is near epidemic proportions among the American youth population, as they gobble up soda, cereal, candy, pop-tarts, twinkies, doughnuts, cookies, breads, french fries, fast-food, and mountains of processed concoctions that are not only devoid of B vitamins, but make a B vitamin deficiency worse.
In Young People, BCDS Causes Emotional Problems
B-complex deficiency syndrome results in beriberi of the heart in older Americans—which is the primary cause of most heart disease. But in adolescents and pre-adolescents the first signs of BCDS show up in their developing brain as emotional and psychological problems that the kids do not recognize or understand. Physiology textbooks(about which most talk show hosts and politicians are ignorant) spell out, almost wordfor- word, what a vitamin B deficiency does to young people. They say, and because of my experience I agree, that BCDS often starts out asdepression. But it can quickly worsen to “nervousness, anxiety, irritability, mental fatigue, severe depression, manic depression, paranoiac thinking, hostility, rage, vague fears, morbid fears, and an overwhelming fear that something horrible is about to happen.” 1,2,3,4,5 And is America’s common-sense answer to this horrific problem a prescription for kids to eat more B-vitamin rich whole foods? Absolutely not—this would infringe on the fast-food, processed-food and pharmaceutical industry’s profits. Instead the answer is more antidepressants and psychotropic drugs! Is all this serious? Do the symptoms of BCDS sound an awful lot like the horrific murders that occurred in Connecticut, in the movie theater in Colorado, and in Oregon? It is deadly serious. I have had countless patients who simply could not find anyone who could help their kids. One mother cried to me that her 13-year old continually told her that he was going to kill her! And sadly, it is too often not even the kids’ fault. They, their friends, their doctors, their parents, their teachers, and their pastors and spiritual leaders are all unaware that BCDS is causing faulty brain chemistry leading to abnormal, pathological, and even psychotic thinking and behavior.
Change Is Not on the Horizon Unfortunately Connecticut, Oregon, and Colorado are going to repeat themselves over and over. Since millions of people are employed in the processed and fast-food industries…since these concoctions taste great...since there is so much money in the business of selling these nonfoods... since there is almost as much money in peddling psychotropoic drugs…and since too many Americans still believe in the diabetescausing, ridiculous low-fat diet…there is simply no way out of future disasters. No gun control, background checks, mental health facilities, drugs, counseling, or anything else is going to let even a ray of light through the shroud of darkness that envelops too many American kids and adolescents. Thanks to profits over mental health, kids are dished up their toxic, non-food daily faire; which leads to their dismal nutritional status; which causes BCDS; which results in emotional and psychological problems that can escalate from depression to psychosis.
For the Young People in Your Life
If you have a troubled kid or teen, please try to encourage them to eat real food. If they refuse— and most will because processed foods are actually created to be habit-forming and addictive—you must get them to take a>whole-food B-complex supplement. And remember, B vitamins must come from food. “Vitamins,” even “high-potency” B vitamins (any vitamins you can buy in any store) are isolated chemicals. As such they will fail to help your kids—just like 95% of all synthetic “vitamins” fail to help any disease or health problem.
,br> There are only a couple B vitamin and omega- 3 supplements that are truly whole organic foods concentrated into supplements. These are produced by highly specialized and often patented techniques primarily by Standard Process and Green Pastures. So if you have a troubled teen who refuses to eat real food, at the very least get them to take 6–9 Cataplex B from Standard Process daily to supplement their B vitamins. Adding in 3–4 Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil capsules from Green Pastures daily would provide their omega 3 fats, and whole vitamins A, F, D and K—making their protocol even better. And if your young person is extremely agitated, nervous, ADD, or ADHD, make sure to also add the calming portion of the B complex—known as vitamin G. Use Cataplex G from Standard Process at a dose of 4– 6 daily. This protocol is the only real thing that could make a difference when it comes to the nutritional deficiencies, brain insult, and resultant emotional and psychological problems with kids. After more than 10,000 young patients, I know this to be true.
But since most of psychiatry ignores this completely. And since no one believes that nutrition has anything to do with mental health. And since young Americans are not likely to improve their diet on their own. And since top talk show hosts make fun of anyone even bringing up the topic—there will be more mass murders. At least you and I are aware of one of the main underlying causes, and will do something about it.
NOTES 1 Vitamin Deficiencies Affect Emotional and Mental Health, Murray and Pizzorno 1998:377.
2 Biochemistry, Kleiner, Orton.
3 Principles of Biochemistry, White, Handler, Smith, Stetton.
4 Medical Physiology, Guyton.
5 Textbook of Medicine, Cecil.