How Nutrient Deprivation Cripples Us Emotionally

Depression-Free, Naturally
by Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D.

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You may not see a connection between starving prisoners and our own poorly functioning health, but as you read on you will begin to understand how physical deprivation can trigger uncontrollable emotional behavior, all the way to madness. I expect many of you are protesting that you are not starving, by any means! But because of your unique, individual biochemical requirements or because of some glitches in how you absorb nutrients, or the fact that you live on junk food and colas, your brain may never get enough of what it needs. Then you are in the same boat as the young men I am about to describe:

During World War II, scientists in the United States also pondered the effects of starvation on captured GIs living in Japanese POW camps. To provide some answers, a six-month study was launched at the University of Minnesota using healthy young male conscientious objectors. This study produced incredible results (although, of course, this kind of study would not be conducted today).

The young men were deprived of more than half their normal food intake. Over the course of six months, many suffered severe physical and psychiatric changes, and most of these disturbances lingered long after the experiment had ended.

In the beginning, the men showed a high degree of tolerance and sociability with each other. But gradually they began to avoid group activities. There were frequent outbursts of anger and irritability, and many grew deeply depressed. Some finally required hospitalization in a psychiatric ward. One chopped off three of his fingers in response to stress; another became uncontrollably violent. Many expressed the fear that they were going crazy; others talked of suicide. They all cried a lot and displayed wild emotional disturbances. Because they felt increasingly socially inadequate, they now preferred to isolate themselves. Concentration and ability to comprehend became severely impaired even though IQ tests showed no drop in their intellectual abilities.

After the study ended, the emotional symptoms continued. In fact, researchers noted that some of the men grew even more negative, depressed, and argumentative, directly after the conclusion of the project!

What both the U.S. and Canadian studies show is that "emotional" symptoms develop as a direct result of the unavailability of brain and body chemicals. These important chemicals create our stable emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and sanity.

Of course, back in the mid-twentieth century, scientists were only beginning to discover the many natural vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, enzymes, endorphins, and neurotransmitters needed for sanity and well-being. Even today, many people do not seem to grasp the concept that our emotional and physical health depends on having the proper concentration of the natural substances the human body needs to sustain life and normal emotional balance.

In fact, until only the last few decades, little was known about how brain chemicals influence emotions. Only a few scientists were dedicated to resolving chemically induced "emotional" problems by restoring adequate levels of the needed natural chemicals.

The growing awareness that natural substances are needed to create optimum brain functioning should have aroused tremendous interest in the scientific community. Unfortunately, the concurrent worldwide development of the drug industry, with its promise of far more lucrative rewards, lead researchers in another direction. Drug companies give university scientists generous grants to invent new, artificial, patentable chemicals. There is no profit for them in developing promising nonpatentable natural brain/body chemicals. And many of these artificial drugs have toxic side effects, because our bodies regard them as foreign invaders. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, prescribed drugs cause 140,000 deaths yearly, yet no drug has ever been able to totally duplicate the role of natural body chemicals.

By pursuing these "patentable" avenues, the pharmaceutical industry today comprises some of the most powerful and profitable businesses worldwide!

Mind and Body — Intertwined

Luckily, in every generation there are a few truly dedicated geniuses who care more for science and humanity than for building their fortunes. Linus Pauling will be remembered as one such giant. He had already won two Nobel Prizes (in 1954 for chemistry, in 1962 for peace) when, in his sixties, he began studying mental disorders, focusing on underlying biochemical dysfunctions. This new interest grew out of his compassion for humankind:

I like human beings. I like to think about the possibilities of decreasing the amount of their suffering. When I remember that 10 percent of the American people spend some part of their lives in a mental hospital and that half of all hospital beds in this country are occupied by mental patients, I do believe that it will be possible to get an understanding of the molecular and genetic basis of mental disease [and] therapeutic methods that will lead to the effective control of a very large part ofmental disease.

Dr. Pauling's interest in disturbed mental function focused on physiology, not psychotherapy. He was the first to call mental disorders "molecular diseases," the result of a biochemical abnormality in the body. And he said, "The mind is a manifestation of the structure of the brain itself."

His involvement in brain research led him to coin his famous definition of orthomolecular therapy: "Orthomolecular psychiatric therapy is the treatment of mental disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment for the mind, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body."

With that statement, Dr. Pauling gave a scientific identity to the role of nutrition in psychiatry. He challenged doctors to become aware of the overwhelming amount of information that was pouring in from all over the world, documenting the vital role natural chemicals play in brain function and other medical disorders. This book is based on those principles.

I bet you think Pauling's advice to medical doctors is obvious. Yet a recent study showed that while 74 percent of first-year medical students believed that a knowledge of nutrition is important to their career, by their third year of learning how to match drugs to symptoms, the number drops to 13 percent!

What Pauling is telling us is that the human mind cannot operate in a vacuum because it is totally dependent on the brain and its molecular function to create your emotional health. In the world of science, where two plus two always makes four, a sane and stable mind is possible only with an organically healthy brain.

Excerpted from Depression-Free, Naturally by Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of Wellspring/Ballantine, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Dr. Joan Mathews Larson is the author of the national bestseller Seven Weeks to Sobriety. She holds a doctorate in nutrition and is the founder and executive director of the highly esteemed Health Recovery Center in Minneapolis. It was the loss of her seventeen-year-old son to suicide that fueled her search for more effective solutions to emotional healing. Her clinic has now successfully treated several thousand people over a twenty-year period. She lives in Minneapolis.