They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is critical for building strong bones and teeth, and has extremely wide-ranging influences on most of your bodily systems—and your brain.

Vitamin D is the ‘sunshine vitamin’, formed naturally by your skin when it’s exposed to the ultra-violet light that accompanies bright sunlight. In summer, you should make enough to last you through the darker days of winter. It’s fat-soluble, so we can store it—but only if we’re exposed to enough sunlight to build up a surplus, or get plenty in our diets. Few foods provide much vitamin D directly. Organ meats (liver, kidneys, etc.), oily fish or full-fat dairy produce are the main dietary sources.

A severe lack of vitamin D causes rickets (softening of the bones, leading to physical deformities). Less obvious deficiency is a major cause of osteoporosis, and is implicated in unexplained muscle and bone pain. That’s because you need vitamin D—along with magnesium—to actually get calcium into your bones.

Active vitamin D is also one of the most powerful pre-hormones in the human body. Deficiency can contribute to heart disease, stroke, hypertension, various autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal (gum) disease, and 17 varieties of cancer!

(#litres_trial_promo) There’s also some evidence that vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy may contribute to hyperactivity and mental health problems in the next generation.

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This being so, it’s not good news that almost one in four children and adults in the UK are seriously deficient in vitamin D each winter, and those who rarely go outside are at risk all year round. What’s more: people with dark skins need up to 10 times the exposure to UV light that fair-skinned people do to make the same amount of vitamin D. This needs to be recognized, as indoor lifestyles (and even some habits of dress) can make it difficult to achieve enough exposure to sufficiently bright sunlight in the UK (or any other countries at a similar, or greater, distance from the equator).

If more than a quarter of our children and adults are frankly vitamin D deficient for large parts of the year, why haven’t we heard more about this? Could it be because no one can patent sunshine, and there are no big profits to be made from selling vitamin D? Looking on the bright side (sorry)—at least sunshine is free: just make sure that you and your child get enough. Take care never to burn (if skin turns even slightly pink, that’s more than enough), but the evidence suggests that moderate exposure can bring real health benefits, with no serious additional risks of skin cancer, which we have all heard plenty about.

TB and Vitamin D

During the Industrial Revolution, many people worked inside for long, long hours and were never out in the sunshine. TB (tuberculosis) was prevalent then, and sufferers were sent off to sanatoriums, where the medicine given was good food and sunshine. Many recovered. Incidentally, the better food alone didn’t cure TB; the daylight really made a difference.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E has powerful antioxidant properties. It particularly helps to protect important fats that your brain and body need.

Vitamin E is actually a whole family of substances (different tocopherols and tocotrienols) which act as ‘antioxidants’—discussed later in this chapter. Vitamin E helps to protect fats and fat-like substances from going rancid. It’s needed by all our cells, but particularly those in the brain, nervous system and vital organs, because these are rich in essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are easily destroyed by ‘oxidation’. Deficiencies of vitamin E and these fatty acids usually go hand in hand—and can contribute to some movement and coordination disorders.

(#litres_trial_promo) Vitamin E deficiency may also result in fragility of the red blood cells which carry oxygen around your body.

More superficially, you may have seen vitamin E added to skin care products—aimed at helping keep your skin looking and feeling younger, or minimizing scar tissue. It’s probably more effective to provide it from the inside, via a healthy diet that provides many other skin-nourishing nutrients! And you need to know that unless you have enough vitamin C with it, vitamin E won’t work—and could even have the opposite effect. Basically, a whole range of different antioxidants work together—so you need them together, in the way they are usually provided by many natural foods. Vitamin E is found in wheatgerm, whole grains, seeds and nuts (including nut butters), unrefined vegetable oils and some fruits and vegetables. (Commercially produced bread without whole grains contains virtually no vitamin E, as milling destroys it. The same goes for refined oils—and Chapter 8 will give you more good reasons to avoid these.)

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is needed to help with blood-clotting.

Vitamin K activates some of the proteins involved in bone growth, and helps your blot clot when you cut or bruise yourself. It’s found in soya, broccoli and spinach. If you have ‘good’ gut flora, some of these bacteria produce vitamin K for you.

Water-soluble Vitamins

Vitamin C and the B vitamins are water-soluble. Unlike A, D, E and K, they can’t be stored by your body, so regular supplies are needed each and every day.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is an all-round antioxidant and also essential to help build healthy bones, cartilage and teeth, to heal wounds, and a whole lot more.

A deficiency of vitamin C results in scurvy, a nasty disease that probably killed more than 2 million sailors on long voyages until it was discovered that a little lemon juice (or home-grown cress!) could prevent this completely. Vitamin C helps your immune system to protect you from viruses and bacteria. It’s also a natural laxative. If your child is deficient in vitamin C, you might notice she’s tired, may be prone to infections, any wounds are slow to heal, and her gums bleed easily.

Vitamin C is found in fruit (especially citrus fruits) and vegetables (especially leafy green ones). Don’t be fooled by artificial vitamin C (ascorbic acid) added to soft drinks: many contain negligible amounts, and these drinks may also contain sodium benzoate—a common preservative that reacts with vitamin C to produce the toxic chemical benzene. (See Chapter 6 for more details on how this brain poison has been found in many soft drinks at up to 8 times the maximum that’s legally permitted in drinking water.) The message is: get vitamin C from fresh fruits and vegetables—as many different types as possible!

Vitamin B

Vitamin B is actually a whole range of vitamins. All are used as co-enzymes – that is, they help other enzymes to perform numerous tasks around your brain and body. They’re important for energy-production, maintaining a healthy heart, growth and reproduction of cells, and various mental functions including attention, thinking skills, coordination and memory.

The B vitamins all work together, so they’re known as the ‘B Spectrum’. I can’t begin to do justice to them all here, although I’ve singled out a few for illustration. You can find plenty of details elsewhere if you want more information on individual members of the B family.

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Vitamin B Complex is essential for:

normal growth and development

energy-production

functioning of the brain and nervous system

functioning of the liver, kidneys and other organs

health of the heart and circulation

maintenance of other body tissues

digestion

immune function

protein, fat and carbohydrate metabolism

manufacture of red blood cells

endocrine and hormonal systems

cell division and DNA repair

numerous enzyme systems

Better Nutrition Can Reduce Antisocial Behaviour

Results of a study by my colleague Bernard Gesch,

(#litres_trial_promo) funded by the charity ‘Natural Justice’, revealed the remarkable effects of micronutrients on behaviour. This was the most definitive study yet showing the impact of diet on antisocial behaviour, including violence: a rigorously controlled trial involving 231 young offenders at a high-security prison in the UK.

Half the young men received daily multivitamin and fatty acid supplements (providing micronutrients only at doses close to recommended daily intakes). The others received identical-looking placebo capsules. Each prisoner was followed for up to nine months of dietary treatment, and his rate of offending during that time was compared with what had prevailed over the preceding nine months.

Offences fell by more than 25 per cent in the group receiving active supplements. When analyses were restricted to those who actually took the supplements for at least two weeks, the reduction was 34 per cent; and for violent offences, it was 37 per cent. In each case, there was no significant change in offending rates for those on placebo.

We Have a Choice

The food provided by the prison in Gesch’s trial met official dietary requirements. The problem was that ‘poor food choices’ by prisoners compromised their nutritional status.