Scientific Studies

 

Ten years ago the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse revealed their study of inmates, which determined that four out of five, or 80%, were in jail or prison due to some degree of illegal drug or alcohol use. There was little public will to invest in prevention or treatment and although the people in some states have passed laws to indicate their willingness to spend tax dollars on addiction treatment, such as Proposition 36 in California, in belt-tightening economic times like today, addiction treatment is considered a luxury, not a necessity.

 

“Treat the Addict, Cut the Crime Rate,” Dr. Nora D. Volkow, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse; Op-Ed article, Washington Post, August 19, 2006. “As a clinician,” Dr. Volkow, a physician, writes, “I don't remember ever meeting an addicted person who wanted to be addicted or who expected that compulsive, uncontrollable, or even criminal behavior would emerge when he or she started taking drugs.”

 

 

 

Stephen Schoenthaler

Unfortunately, what neither the public nor the lawmakers understand is the cost-effective treatment in their kitchen cabinets. Stephen J. Schoenthaler, PhD, is a professor of criminal justice and sociology at California State University Stanislaus and has decades of international research proving the food/supplement/behavior connection in schools and jails.

Stephen J. Schoenthaler, Ph.D., Walter E. Doraz, Ph.D., James A. Wakefield, Jr., Ph.D.,"The Testing of Various Hypotheses as Explanations for the Gains in National Standardized Academic Test Scores in the 1978-1983 New York City Nutrition Policy Modification Project," International Journal of Biosocial Research, Vol.8(2), p. 196-203,1986.

An increase from the 39th to the 55th national percentile rank in New York City public schools occurred on the heels of the three years in which dietary changes were made. No other school district could be located which had reported such a large gain above the rest of the nation so quickly in a large population.

Publications by Stephen Schoenthaler

  • “Institutional Nutritional Policies and Criminal Behavior,” Nutrition Today, 20(3): 25-39, 1985
  • “The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on juvenile delinquency among American schoolchildren: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.” J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb;6(1):7-17. Schoenthaler SJ, Bier ID.
  • Schoenthaler SJ, Bier ID, Young K, Nichols D, Jansenns S, “The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on the intelligence of American schoolchildren: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.” J Altern Complement Med. 2000 Feb;6(1):19-29.
  • Schoenthaler, S., & Bier, I.D. Invited Commentary on Gesch CB et al. Influence of supplementary vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids on the antisocial behaviour of young adult prisoners. Randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Br J Psychiatry 2002 Jul; 181: 22-8. Evidence Based Mental Health, March 2003.

Following in Schoenthaler's footsteps, Bernard Gesch of the University of Oxford in England used a placebo and a real multivitamin/mineral and found that giving added nutrients to young offenders in England reduced violence and other serious offenses by 40% and disciplinary offences by 25%. Gesch was quoted by the BBC as saying this approach was “cheap, highly effective, and humane.”  Healthy eating 'can cut crime, June 25, 2002

 

 

Kathleen DesMaisons, PhD

DesMaisons, ran a nutrition-based program in San Mateo County, California, for some years with excellent results. She called it The Biochemical Restoration Program and it ran for 3.5 years, through the end of June 1997 for only $280,000, a pittance for such a lengthy recovery program. By focusing on diet and nutrition, DesMaisons successfully reduced the sugar cravings that lead people with flawed carbohydrate metabolism to want the sugar in alcohol. When the county evaluated the nutrition-based program versus a control group who didn’t receive DesMaisons’ nutrition education, they found that people in the control group were charged again for far more serious offenses at four times the rate of nutrition program graduates. Two participants in the training violated probation compared to 13 control group members, who totaled 32 violations between them.

DesMaisons, K., Biochemical restoration as an intervention for multiple offense drunk driving. PhD dissertation, The Union Institute, Cincinnati, OH, 1996

Both the concept of addiction nutrition and its practical application are outside the common experience of the vast majority of professionals in the field of addiction. Yet research creating a rational underpinning for the concept has been published since the mid-20th century.

 

 

Kenneth Blum, Ph.D.

One of the early researchers in the genetic basis for all compulsive, addictive, impulsive behaviors is pharmacogeneticist Kenneth

Blum, PhD, who did much of his seminal work at the University of Texas in San Antonio. When he moved from laboratory rodents to field research with people, he and his colleagues discovered malnourished brains hungry for relief, and he began creating formulas of nutrients designed for opiate users, stimulant users, people craving comfort foods, and other unique populations defined by their neurotransmitter deficiencies.

Following are a very few of Blum’s studies, which date back to the 1960s.

  • “A commentary on neurotransmitter restoration as a common mode of treatment for alcohol, cocaine and opiate abuse.” Integrative Psychiatry, 6:199 204, 1989.
  • “Neuronutrient therapy for compulsive disease: Rationale and clinical evidence.” With Rassner, M., and Payne, J.E. Addiction and Recovery, 10(2):12 16, 1990.

 

Stopping drug use is the beginning, not the end point, for a healthy life. Nutrient replacement therapy takes time. Self-care is a learned behavior and like any good lesson, needs reinforcement and rewards. In some cases the reward of eating well, taking supplemental nutrients, and receiving acupuncture may not be visible to the eye, but their benefits are real and documented in more studies than noted here.

 

  • Gaby, Alan R., MD, editor. “Nutritional Therapy In Medical Practice: A Reference Manual and Study Guide.” Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. (Section 25):253-255, 2001. (Lists 43 scientific studies of various nutritional substances used for addiction treatment.)

Additional methods of brain repair, including cranial electrical stimulation, chiropractic, and acupuncture, have also been found effective:

  • Braverman, E., Smith, R., Smayda, R., and Blum, K. “Modification of P300 amplitude and other electrophysiological parameters of drug abuse by cranial electrical stimulation.” Current Therapeutic Research 48(4):586-596, 1990.

 

Additional Studies

  • The California Youth Authority is reviewed in a leading British Medical textbook titled Food Allergy and Intolerance (2nd edition) by Brostoff and Challacombe and published by Saunders Press in 2002.  Chapter 53 from page 731 to 746 is a concise review of all the studies between 1981 and 2001 showing how they link together. That chapter is available upon request as a PDF file.
  • Zaalberg A, Nijman H, Bulten E, Stroosma L, van der Staak C. “Effects of nutritional supplements on aggression, rule-breaking, and psychopathology among young adult prisoners,”  Aggress Behav. 2010 Mar-Apr;36(2):117-26.
  • Yang CH, Lee BH, Sohn SH.“A possible mechanism underlying the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of drug addiction,” Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2008 Sep;5(3):257-66.
  • The first randomized controlled trial, the Oklahoma study, was published in a British journal that is not indexed in the National Library of Medicine.  The citations for that article are Schoenthaler SJ, Amos SP, Doraz WE, Kelly M, Wakefield J.  The effects of nutritional counseling and vitamin mineral supplementation on violent and non-violent antisocial behavior among incarcerated juveniles in The Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.   If requested, I can email to you a PDF copy.
     
  • The following link takes the reader into the National Library of Medicine where the Arizona school children study on delinquency can be found.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10706231. This was the third randomized controlled trial.
  • The adjacent link takes the reader into the National Library of Medicine where the Arizona school children study on intelligence can be found.    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10706232. It is on the same sample.  The study on their improved academic performance is ready for publication, but not in the public domain as yet.
  • The following link takes the reader into the National Library of Medicine where the Gesch study in The British Journal of Psychiatry can be found.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed. Notice that the full study can be downloaded at this site for free.  This is the fourth randomized controlled trial.
  • The following  is the fifth randomized controlled trial which is Dutch replication of the British replication of AAS work.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20014286
     
  • The best free two page summary of the first 4 randomized controlled trials is found in a British Medical Association Publication, Evidence Based Mental Health.  It is entitled “Invited commentary on Gesch CB et. al. Influence of supplementary vitamins, minerals, minerals and essential fatty acids on the antisocial behavior of young adult prisoners: Randomized placebo-controlled trial.” The commentary is in Evidence Based Mental Health. In their May 2003 issue.
  • http://ebmh.bmj.com/content/by/year/2003    From this link a reader can scroll down to the first article under “Therapeutics” and click on “additional commentary” as well as the other links to the article.