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 Naturopathic Solutions to America’s Epidemics of Violence and Neurobehavioral Disorders, Part Three
By Alex Vasquez, ND, DC, Editor, Naturopathy Digest avasquez@naturopathydigest.com The purpose of this series of editorials is to raise awareness of America’s epidemics of violence and neurobehavioral disorders, and to provide some “outside-of-the-pillbox” solutions that differ from the “drug for every disorder” answers and overly simplistic solutions we generally hear from the drug companies and the corporate news sources they influence. In part one of this series,1 I deflated the myth that we’ve achieved the goal of becoming a “kinder and gentler nation”2 by providing a few statistics about the ubiquitous nature of violent behavior in America; how it pervades the lives of children and adults; and how we as a society have denied the prevalence and severity of this problem and have been collectively impotent to reverse this multicausal and corporate-sponsored trend. Although we as a society pretend to not have money for affordable health care clinics and for pro-health projects like federal subsidization of naturopathic colleges, we certainly have plenty of money to spend on junk food and violence. Fast-food sales in the U.S. in 2006 were estimated to exceed $142 billion3 and in 2005, we Americans spent $5.5 billion on candy sold in convenience stores (only one of many outlets, including grocery stores and movie theaters).4 Sales of violent video games, most of which are sold to children under the age of 18, exceed $800 million per year in the U.S.,5 and a single “main event” fight such as the May 2007 De La Hoya vs. Mayweather battle, brought in $19 million in stadium seating (with front-row seats selling for $20,000 each), more than $1 billion in pay-per-view sales and several million more dollars in national and local advertising and product sales.6 As a society, we have plenty of extra money to spend; it just so happens that we earmark many of those dollars for sugar and violence, rather than for health-promoting programs and practices. In part two of this series,7 I skimmed the surface of the research documenting the link between dietary imbalances and inadequacies and the neurobehavioral problems that result. I began by citing the brilliant observational work of Weston Price8 and mentioning results from recent controlled clinical trials in children and young adults that irrefutably document the safety and benefits of simple and affordable nutritional interventions for the improvement of behavior and enhancement of emotional and intellectual status.9-13 I also reviewed research showing that nearly all American schoolchildren have accumulated toxic blood and tissue levels of the insecticide chlorpyrifos/Dursban14 (far exceeding the “safe” limit of exposure). We have clear evidence of a dose-effect relationship wherein higher levels of chlorpyrifos/Dursban in children are associated with progressively deteriorating intellectual performance and worsening behavioral problems.15 Approximately 8 percent of American women of childbearing age have levels of mercury high enough to increase the risk for neurocognitive disorders in their children.16 As a society, we underguide17 and undernourish our children, and we expose them to violence18 and toxic chemicals that disrupt normal brain function. The dominant therapeutic paradigm is to mask these symptoms with symptom-modifying drugs, rather than address the core problems. Social historian and commentator Robert Bly observed that the dissolution of societal fabric was expedited by the industrial revolution, which forced people to work away from their homes and families.19 In modern times, the general rule is that people wake up in the morning and then leave their family and home to spend the most and best hours of the day in offices, cubicles or otherwise “at work,” and then return home in the evening, hungry in both stomach and soul. Although the average workday still is eight hours for the average fully-employed American,20 the average commute adds an additional hour to the workday.21 Add an hour on either end for preparation and decompression,22 and thus, 11 of each 16 waking hours is given to our phenomenon of “work.” In the remaining five hours, people are supposed to exercise, stay informed of current events, stay in contact with friends and family, advance their career, pursue their hobbies, resolve their personal issues and seek personal growth, maintain the car and household, establish and maintain social networks and commune with nature. According to www.timeday.org, “Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks; many of us (including 37 percent of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.”23 That American society has been in the process of dissolution for the past few decades has been made clear by a series of research articles documenting the progressive depletion of individual social capital (i.e., the number of authentic friendships and strong relationships a person claims). In the 20 years from 1985 to 2004, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. The average American now claims to have only two friends, according to primary research titled “Social Isolation in America,” published in the June 2006 issue of American Sociological Review (available online).24 If this rate of societal dissolution were to continue, we would expect that our society will be almost completely fragmented and the average American will have no confidants within the next 20 years. The points here are that our social fabric is dissolving, we are increasingly isolated, and we need to change the way we live as a society if we are to prevent and reverse this trend. Societal trends in violent behavior and neuroemotional problems are complex and multifaceted. These three editorials have only discussed a few of the more obvious contributors: 1) poor maternal-fetal nutrition; 2) poor postnatal nutrition; 3) exposure to neurotoxic xenobiotics, such as pesticides and mercury; 4) our participation in vicarious violence; and 5) the dissolution of the social structures and networks that connect us with intimate friendships. Health care professionals will be collectively doomed to failure if they continue to seek biochemical-molecular-pharmacologic solutions to problems that originate socially.25 We have to think outside of the box and outside of the pharmaceutical pillbox. Will the naturopathic profession offer a collective position on these issues, or will we, as naturopathic physicians, continue to work in isolation, give out nutritional supplements and have our patients revisit in a month? Without health care leadership on a national level, how could we hope that things might improve? Let’s discuss options in the Naturopathy Digest Discussion Forum, exclusively for naturopathic physicians. Visit www.naturopathydigest.com/forum, select “ND-Only Discussion Forum,” enter your username and password and join the discussion now. References
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Date Last Modified - Friday, 17-Oct-2008 12:11:05 PDT
Refocusing Our Attention to the Cause(s) of the Problem
