archenemy blog

(Clearing out some older unfinished posts)

This is interesting:

Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive bevaviour [...] The study is investigating the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain, and the pills that have effected Demar’s “miracle” are doses of fish oil.

The results emerging from this study are at the cutting edge of the debate on crime and punishment. In Britain we lock up more people than ever before. Nearly 80,000 people are now in our prisons, which reached their capacity this week.

But the new research calls into question the very basis of criminal justice and the notion of culpability. It suggests that individuals may not always be responsible for their aggression. Taken together with a study in a high-security prison for young offenders in the UK, it shows that violent behaviour may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies.

Does it really? Is the notion of culpibility currently based on all people being genetically identical and equally agressive? I always assumed that the reason that people are responsible for their actions is that, well… they’re the ones doing the acting. But hey, maybe the lack of a Tsarist Fish Oil for Children program is responsible for fifty million dead Russians, and we all owe Stalin a big, fat apology.

Anyway, with that gratuitous bit of pomo deconstruction of the phallocracy snarked at, we move on:

Over the last century most western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in the composition of their diets in which the omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids, mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower. [...] To test the hypothesis, Hibbeln and his colleagues have mapped the growth in consumption of omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils in 38 countries since the 1960s against the rise in murder rates over the same period. In all cases there is an unnerving match. As omega-6 goes up, so do homicides in a linear progression. Industrial societies where omega-3 consumption has remained high and omega-6 low because people eat fish, such as Japan, have low rates of murder and depression.

So if I need to be more aggressive, I should eat more junk food? No, no - don’t throw me in that briar patch! Commentary aside, thought - the program delivers interesting results:

Demar has been out of trouble and sober for a year now. He has a girlfriend, his own door key, and was made employee of the month at his company recently. Others on the trial also have long histories of violence but with omega-3 fatty acids have been able for the first time to control their anger and aggression. J, for example, arrived drinking a gallon of rum a day and had 28 scars on his hand from punching other people. Now he is calm and his cravings have gone. W was a 19st barrel of a man with convictions for assault and battery. He improved dramatically on the fish oil and later told doctors that for the first time since the age of five he had managed to go three months without punching anyone in the head.

Since reading an article about nutrition is just a step away from reading one about food, I’m reminded that my business’ Mexican Strategy needs to be brought in line with current geopolitical realities, post-haste.