Chapter 48: Depression, Fish-stocks, Fatty Acids and Anti Ageing
Abstract: our reality has changed in the very long time that it has taken for us to evolve from the water to the land and we have not gained the knowledge that our senses in our brain need, and not realized that plants have evolved along with us that can provide another source of the essential omega-3 fatty acids. Technology (and this chapter) has updated our senses as to a better supply than fish because vegetarian sources are safer and less polluted than our decimated fish-stocks as a source of omega-3s, especially when our consumption should be massively increased to help combat depression and dietary misbalance of omega-3s versus omega-6s. Dietary misinformation is spurring technology into depleting fish-stocks to try to supply a food that should be shunned.
The mind/brain has many uses, but one of the most important is to maintain reality so that we can react as quickly as possible and it has been mentioned how the mind/brain ‘fills in’ the ‘missing’ bits such as those areas of vision obscured by the nose, and reality is of crucial importance because it stops predators creeping up on us by using a ‘special’ sense. We must have the same senses (or have the protection of a niche) and we do that courtesy of the Rule of Life that we can’t go back and so have the same components as the more primitive animals in our mind/brain.
We have evolved (by the second Law of Life) to possess the combination, as discussed before, (state of mind, nutrition and exercise) that allows us to function in the wider environment. Infections use to be the biggest killers, but with antibiotics etc. these have given way to the ‘modern’ diseases of cancer, stroke, heart disease etc. and I believe that these can be kept at bay by the application of state of mind, nutrition and exercise, as has been mentioned previously. However, if these modern diseases can be kept at bay, eventually something will occur to ‘exit’ us, and that could be mental degeneration that has been ‘lumped’ into state of mind. The approach to anti ageing has to be ‘holistic’ or ‘whole-istic’ and all aspects must be considered as part of a healthy lifestyle. I have mentioned the importance of a healthy state of mind, but not in regard to the effects of the environment on the state of the mind.
It has been discussed in chapters 13, 14 and 15 on eusociality that aberrant behaviour, leading to jail-time, low intelligence and antisocial behaviour etc. is instilled through growing up in unstable home environments. This ‘marries’ with the idea that the brain is in a ‘cut-down’ form at birth and is a component, that means that it has the capacity to do as much or as little as we ask of it, and the ‘personality’ that develops is a function of the environment only. In other words, this suggests that mental illness only depends on our life from birth, and this broad statement needs more investigation because other factors have an effect such as, as we have previously seen, that intelligence can be affected by nutrition. I am simplifying the discussion of the ‘state’ of the mind/brain using the Rule of Life that the effects of mind/brain becomes complicated but the organization is simple and it is difficult to go back. In other words, it is better to form a personality through the environment than to try to change it, after it has formed, by psychiatric means.
I realize that there are a number of genetic abnormalities such as Down Syndrome, Huntington’s disease etc. that are genetic in origin and form a class of their own, but they are, of course part of this discussion. So, within state of mind, we know that it can affect every cell in the body and it is called the placebo effect when it produces ‘good’ things and nocebo when it produces ‘bad’ things, such as death. As mentioned previously, the mind/brain and gamma system directly accesses every cell in the body and every cell directly accesses the gamma system and mind/brain because there is nothing in the body that is not, or was not a cell. The mind/brain is the means that a collection of cells uses to access a new reality. Looking further, the ‘concept’ of body/mind is a combination of the three factors, state of mind, nutrition and exercise, and we have previously looked at the health of the mind as depending on those factors.
However, the state of our minds is determined by our up-bringing and that also determines our intelligence that is also determined by our nutrition and exercise as well as personality and other mental problems that we may have acquired over our lifetime. This has been discussed previously and forms the basis to the Survival of the Best where we try to eliminate the toxic factors in a person’s upbringing and lifestyle and try to produce well-rounded sane members of a society where there are competitive forces that are healthy, such as is found in business called laissez faire.
Having set the stage, I would like to introduce a ‘leading’ character that is rapidly becoming a problem to our health and especially a threat to the way that we age, or, anti age. ‘Globally, more working days are lost through depression than any other illness and it is one of the most serious health threats worldwide. One in ten people are depressed. For one in 20, it’s a chronic lifelong condition. The age at which it first strikes is falling.’ (Defying Age: how to think, act and stay young, Miriam Stoppard, p 161)
Depression is a mental illness, and not counted as a disease of aging so, let’s start by looking at the aging brain. ‘What happens inside your body as you live longer: brain: change: brain tissue dies from poor blood supply, clot or haemorrhage: age-related diseases: loss of memory, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke: what you can do to defy age: keep weight normal, low animal fat diet, fish oils, don’t smoke, exercise for new brain cells, learn a new language.’ (p 76) To counteract loss of memory, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke, it is recommended, as above, nutrition and exercise should be used.
To repeat, anti aging (my style) requires exercise, nutrition and mental stimulation, but depression is apparently with us in general and is a threat to longevity, so what can we do about it? The first thing is to admit that I didn’t read very far into a book on depression, simply because it was too depressing and potentially dangerous because ‘we are recognizing that happiness is a skill, willpower is a skill, health is a skill, successful relationships require skills, emotional intelligence is a skill. We know this because practice not only leads to improvement but also to changes in the brain. (Undoing Depression, Richard O’Connor, p 5) Also, I believe that depression is a skill, but not one that you want to develop, so a very brief outline will show how widespread are the effects of depression.
‘Depressed Emotional Skills: isolation of…. emotion, … somatization, … denial, … repression, … intellectualisation; projection, externalisation, and internalisation … ; rageaholism …; and anhedonia … , hopelessness, and apathy.
Depressed Behavioral Skills: procrastination, … lethargy, work till you drop, inability to prioritise, pushing yourself mindlessly, … obsessive and compulsive behavior, … victimizing, violence, and acting out, … victimization and self-mutilation.
Depressed Cognitive Skills: pessimism, … negative self-talk, … passivity, … selective attention, … depressed logic.
Depressed Interpersonal Skills: recruiting accomplices, … social isolation, … dependency, … counterdependency, … passive aggression, … porous boundaries.
Depressed Treatment of the Self: impossible goals, low expectations, … no goals, lots of guilt, … passive aggression against the self.
Depressed Treatment of the Body: the cycle of exhaustion/collapse, … lack of exercise, … neglecting medical care/succumbing to quacks, … defensive eating, … abuse of drugs and alcohol. (p 32)
‘Depression is the replacement of parts of the self that are natural, spontaneous, and honest with these self-destructive skills. It’s the loss of the parts of the self, the gradual numbing of feelings and experiences that we gradually come to believe are unacceptable and banish from experience. Cure comes from the recovery of the missing pieces. “The true opposite of depression is not gaiety or absence of pain, but vitality: the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.”’ (p 36)
The second question has to be asked and that is about mental health/illness. Aside from genetic problems, mental health appears to be formed from upbringing, and upbringing comprises and results from the same three factors (state of mind, nutrition and exercise) that we would expect from a general law (second Law of Life). Now, I have no expertise in this area and I am simplifying, but have to question whether mental illness can be treated by diet and/or the traditional psychiatric means. I ask this because I keep finding quotations such as, ‘Countries where people eat lots of fish have lower rates of homicide, bipolar disorder and suicide.’ (p 161) It is intriguing that this suggests that the omega 3 fatty acids (or others) found in fish have an effect on such diverse mental problems as homicide, bipolar disorder and suicide.
So, ignoring genetic problems and taking the brain to be a component, it appears that the state of the mind/brain’s health is entirely due to nurture and that is state of mind, nutrition and exercise. The relationship is complicated, but the following is indicative of how nutrition affects the brain from a very early age. ‘People with little omega-3 in their spinal fluid also have low levels of serotonin and a tendency to depression. Early in a baby’s development, serotonin acts as a signal to guide migrating neurons to their correct locations. Serotonin also assists to correct growth of brain connections. So lack of omega-3 fatty acids early in life may forever alter the way the brain develops and operates. This much has been recognized with the move to add omega-3s to infant formula milk.’ (p 161)
On the other hand, ‘Doctor Benjamin Spock wrote the bestselling book Baby and Child Care and, a decade after his death, remains one of the most influential pediatricians on the planet. Spock staunchly opposed feeding cow’s milk or other animal foods to children of any age. (Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon, p 197) ‘One of the pieces of information to emerge from recent studies is that kids grow up healthier when they don’t consume significant amounts of dairy (other than their own mother’s milk) or other animal protein.’ (p 196) Putting this paragraph another way, ‘vegetarians simply outlive meat-eaters … it’s thought that vegetarians age more slowly because they have higher levels of plant antioxidants in their bloodstreams to ward off cancers and chronic diseases.’ (Defying Age, Miriam Stoppard, p 150)
People generally consider meat to be a ‘food’, but clearly it must be a second-class food because when your body breaks meat into its component parts, which is digestion, it has the amino acids, but the original animal gained those same amino acids along with protective antioxidants etc from the original plant material. This is apart from the fact that humans ‘closely resemble herbivores’! This startling fact needs a little more information.
‘In a study examining the comparative anatomy of carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, and humans, physician Milton Mills compared nineteen anatomical features from the four groups. Mills found that humans most closely resemble herbivores, not carnivores or omnivores, in all anatomical features relating to eating. Thus, like herbivores but unlike carnivores or omnivores: our saliva contains enzymes to digest carbohydrates; our intestines are long, not short; our mouth opening is small, not large; our stomach’s pH is 4 to 5, not 1; we chew food rather than swallow it whole; we have flattened nails instead of sharp claws; our molars are flattened, not sharp; our incisors are broad and flat, not sharp and pointed; and our canines are short and blunted, not long and sharp. These features all support plant consumption’. (Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon, p 190)
So why do we like eating meat? The answer is that we don’t eat meat, we eat ‘cooked’ meat! Cooked meat is a processed food that is not our natural food but by cooking it, we soften it so that we are able to eat it easily and quickly. Try eating raw meat! The only recipe that I have come across that uses uncooked meat uses ground beef! Modern meats tend to contain a lot of fat, either by breeding animals that way or feeding inappropriate foods in ‘food-lots’ to captive animals. Fat is one of the three requirements that predators have difficulty obtaining in the wild (fats, carbohydrates and salt) because herd animals tend not to carry fat for a number of reasons.
So, if we haven’t evolved to eat meat, why are omega-3 fatty acids so beneficial? If I were to make a guess, remember how the hindbrain evolved in a water-world and the Rule of Life says that we can’t go back, so the same chemistry has continued to be used. Fish have access to the sources of the essential fatty acid omega-3 and these fatty acids are called essential because we can’t manufacture them ourselves, we have to eat them. So, when our brain evolved, it evolved in water and has remained (functionally) the same ever since, although we left the water behind a long time ago..
‘Fish are a nutritional paradox. On one hand, they’re a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which can improve infant brain development and reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. On the other hand, almost without exception, fish contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can damage the nervous system and cause cognitive disabilities. And they frequently contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which cause cancer and, in infants, neurological and motor control problems.’ (p 200)
‘Our modern intake of fats is very different from what our ancestors were eating when the human brain evolved. We use to have a taste for fish and seafood, all of which are high in omega-3s … a century ago we were eating equal quantities of omega-3 fats and omega-6 fats … in countries where people eat the least fish the rate of depression is highest, and vice versa.’ (Defying Age, Miriam Stoppard, p 160)
I am pulling attractors (or concepts) down that are relevant so that we can put them together so that they make better sense. From above, it is apparent that we should not be eating large amounts of meat, and yet we are asked to eat omega-3 fatty acids that are found in fish, but that is a dangerous source. ‘If this seems like a lot of risk and effort to obtain onega-3s, consider a non-fish, non-toxic source for your beneficial fatty acids. Omega-3s are readily available in flax, hemp, soy, and walnuts.’ (Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon, p 201) Also, pumpkin seeds and green leafy vegetables (Defying Age, Miriam Stoppard, p 159)
Now ‘the average New Zealander, for example, eats only 18 kg (40 lb) of fish a year and 6 per cent of the population suffers from depression. In Japan, where they eat 64kg (140lb) of fish a year, depression strikes fewer than 1 per cent of people. This correlation holds true across the world. (p 161
Our brains evolved in seawater using a proportion of omega-3 fatty acids and we evolved onto the land and away from ready access to omega-3s except through eating fish. The Rule of Life required that we find new sources of omega-3s as we evolved away from water and fish provided the link. Other alternatives (in flax, hemp, soy, and walnuts) were not known to us in the past as omega-3 sources, and indeed, we didn’t know that we needed omega-3 fatty acids. The eighth sense did not let us down over a hundred million years because even in my lifetime fish was considered a ‘brain food’. However, now due to technology and more knowledge about omega-3s, we can replace fish with safer and cheaper vegetable sources. This course saves fish stocks from the recommendations to use fish as a source of omega-3s especially during pregnancy and provides a healthier option from vegetarian sources, free from contamination.
Further, both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids ‘are needed for growth and the repair of cells and tissues in the body, but the balance between them is more important than the amounts in the diet. The way we in the West eat now has ruined that balance.’ (p 159) Also, it appears that depression is a major disease world-wide and can be controlled or ameliorated by increasing consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. ‘So could foods rich in omega-3s be a treatment for depression? In one study patients showed significant progress within two weeks of starting to take fish oil high in omega-3 fatty acid.’ (p 161)
Conclusion: Our reality has changed in the very long time that it has taken for us to evolve from the water to the land and we have not gained the knowledge that our senses in our brain need, and not realized that plants have evolved along with us that can provide another source of the essential omega-3 fatty acids. Technology (and this chapter) has updated our senses as to a better supply than fish because vegetarian sources are safer and less polluted than our decimated fish-stocks as a source of omega-3s, especially when our consumption should be massively increased to help combat depression and dietary misbalance of omega-3s versus omega-6s. Dietary misinformation is spurring technology into depleting fish-stocks to try to supply a food that should be shunned.
darrylpenney 