Three weeks after a baby is conceived—when the embryo is smaller than a peppercorn—the heart begins to form. By week four, the primitive fetal heart is pumping blood and the neural tube along the back is closing. Basic facial features then appear, including passageways that become the inner ears and arches that become the jaw. Small buds will soon grow into arms and legs.
These changes are the result of a process called differentiation. The embryo begins as a collection of undifferentiated cells—called stem cells—which are cells that can be changed or differentiated into cells that have specialized purposes. Very early in the process of fetal growth, certain stem cells receive a signal to become heart cells, thus initiating the process of forming the heart. Soon after, the stem cells get signals to form cells for the other systems and organs—the nervous system, the lungs, the skeleton, the organs, the skin, the muscles. But what gives that signal?
The specific compound that directs the differentiation of the embryonic stem cells into the heart and other organs is vitamin A. Vitamin A is the concert master of fetal development, necessary for the differentiation and patterning of all cells, tissues and organs within the developing body. It is especially important for the development of communication systems between the sense organs and the brain.1
It was in 2010 that researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California pinpointed the mechanism that guides embryonic heart tissue formation: retinoic acid, an isomer of vitamin A. “This exciting research shows how retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivative, acts to guide cells in the embryo to form parts of the heart and the major blood vessels that emerge from it,” said a spokesman for the research. “Defects in this developmental pathway can result in serious congenital malformations in the heart in the fetus and newborns, that may be fatal if not corrected surgically.”2
The heart begins to form often before the mother knows she is pregnant. Upon realizing she’s with child, a mother begins to think about nutrition for her developing baby—but if she is deficient in vitamin A at the time of conception, the heart may not form properly—or at all. The same goes for other organs, which are forming at a rapid pace.3 When Weston A. Price studied so-called “primitive peoples” during the 1930s and 1940s, he noted that all these groups valued one or more “sacred” foods considered important for men and women to consume at least six months before conception, for women during pregnancy and lactation, and for children during growth. In Switzerland, that food was a deep yellow nutrient-dense butter from cows eating rapidly growing spring grass; in the Outer Hebrides, the sacred food was fish heads stuffed with oats and chopped cod’s liver; for many groups the sacred food was fish eggs; for others it was liver. South Sea Islanders of both sexes consumed the oil from fermented shark livers for a period before conception. When Dr. Price asked the various groups why they consumed that particular food, the answer was always the same: “So we can have healthy babies.”
The sacred foods had this in common: they were nutrient-dense animal foods with particularly high levels of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2—and especially vitamin A. By consuming them before conception, fathers would produce healthy sperm and mothers would have plenty of vitamin A in storage to meet the demands of the rapidly differentiating embryo.
Price described his early work on vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy and during the preconception period in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. He noted that in diverse species of laboratory animals, a vitamin A deficiency produced spontaneous abortion, prolonged labor, death of the mother and her offspring during labor; eye defects including the complete absence of eyes, defects of the snout, dental arches and lips; displacement of internal organs including the kidneys, ovaries and testes; and deafness due to degeneration of the nervous system.4
Even mild vitamin A deficiency compromises the number of functional units in the kidneys (called nephrons), which could predispose a person to poor kidney function later in life. The number of cells in the kidneys is highly dependent on vitamin A status during embryonic and fetal development.5
Vitamin A is critical for lung formation as well.6 Nepalese children whose mothers received vitamin A supplementation during pregnancy had better lung function compared to those who received a placebo. Children whose mothers received plant-based beta-carotene supplements did not experience any benefits.7 The researchers explained: “The greater bio-efficacy of preformed vitamin A as compared with beta-carotene may stem from differences in absorption and metabolism.”*
Vitamin A is necessary during fetal development and also throughout adult life, as it helps to maintain the presence of cells lining the lungs, which are covered in hairlike projections called cilia.8 These hairs sweep away debris and foreign material, protecting the lungs from pollutants and infections. During and after the formation of all these systems, vitamin A supports their continued growth.
Dr. Price noted that vitamin A, along with the other fat-soluble vitamins, was critical for normal facial development, wide features, high cheekbones and large dental palates ensuring straight and even teeth—the hallmarks of attractiveness. Children born to parents who consumed “the displacing foods of modern commerce” tended to have narrower faces and crowded teeth—which he called “dental deformities.”
Attractive facial features are symmetrical, and vitamin A holds the key to what scientists call the “holy grail” puzzle of developmental biology: the existence of a mechanism to ensure that the exterior of our bodies is symmetrical while the inner organs are arranged asymmetrically. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that vitamin A provides the signal that buffers the influences of asymmetric cues in the early stages of development and allows these cells to develop symmetrically. In the absence of vitamin A, the exterior of our bodies would develop asymmetrically—our right side would be shorter than the left side, and the face misshapen.9
We do not have exact figures for the vitamin A content of the preconception and pregnancy diets used by the groups that Price studied, but they were certainly higher than the RDA of 2,600 IU per day. These groups prized organ meats, especially liver, and used them on a regular basis—one serving of liver contains up to 32,000 IU vitamin A.
When discussing the scourge of tuberculosis that plagued mankind during the 1930s, Price speculated that the same factors that resulted in underdevelopment of the face also caused the underdevelopment of the lungs. New research suggests the validity of Price’s theory. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have found evidence that prenatal vitamin A deficiency results in postnatal airway hyperresponsiveness, a hallmark of asthma. The study, conducted in mice, shows that a short-term deficit of vitamin A while the lung is forming can cause profound changes in the smooth muscle that surrounds the airways, causing the adult lungs to respond to environmental or pharmacological stimuli with excessive narrowing of the airways.10 “Researchers have long wondered what makes some people more susceptible than others to developing asthma symptoms when exposed to the same stimulus,” said Dr. Cardoso, senior author. “Our study suggests that the presence of structural and functional abnormalities in the lungs due to vitamin A deficiency during development is an important and underappreciated factor in this susceptibility. More generally, our findings highlight a point often overlooked in adult medicine, which is that adverse fetal exposures that cause subtle changes in developing organs can have lifelong consequences.”
A 2007 European study confirms the importance of adequate vitamin A. The study found that one-third of women with short birth intervals or multiple births had borderline deficiencies in retinol. “If the vitamin A supply of the mother is inadequate,” they warned, “her supply to the fetus will also be inadequate, as will later be her milk. These inadequacies cannot be compensated by postnatal supplementation.”*11 Moms need to put sufficient time between births in order to rebuild vitamin A stores.
Vitamin D from fatty animal food plays an equally important role in fetal development. For example, in the late third trimester, the fetal skeleton enters a period of rapid growth that requires calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D. An infant born six weeks prematurely has laid down only half the calcium into its bones as an infant carried to term.
Like vitamin A, vitamin D plays a role in lung development,12 and it probably plays a much larger role in fetal development in general due to vitamin D’s interaction with vitamin A—both are needed for optimal effects.
At birth, the infant’s blood level of vitamin D is closely correlated to that of the mother.13 Adequate levels of vitamin D protect the newborn from tetany, convulsions and heart failure.14 The rapid skeletal growth that occurs in late pregnancy taxes the vitamin D supply of the mother and her blood levels drop over the course of the third trimester. One study conducted in Britain showed that 36 percent of new mothers and 32 percent of newborn infants had no detectable vitamin D in their blood; another showed that 60 percent of infants born to white mothers in the spring and summer had levels under 8 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), a level that is extremely deficient.15
Vitamin D plays a role in pancreatic function. Although no studies have directly assessed the use of this dose during pregnancy, a study of over ten thousand infants in Norway conducted between 1966 and 1997 showed that direct supplementation of 2,000 IU per day to infants in the first year of life virtually eradicated the risk of type 1 diabetes over the next thirty years.*16
Compared to vitamins A and D, very little is known about the role of vitamin K2 in embryonic and fetal development. The enzyme that uses vitamin K2 to activate vitamin K–dependent proteins first shows up in the skeletal and nervous tissue of the embryo.17 Two vitamin K–dependent proteins are present in the first trimester.18 These proteins help lay down calcium in bone tissue and keep calcium out of the soft tissues, where it does not belong. Indirect evidence indicates that vitamin K plays a crucial role in facial development, ensuring a wide face and high cheekbones that will bless the child with capacious sinus cavities and overall good looks.
Another critical nutrient for the developing fetus is DHA. The fetus hoards DHA from the mother and incorporates it into its brain at ten times the rate at which it can synthesize it.19 (Maternal loss of DHA may be a contributing factor to postpartum depression.20) DHA can be obtained primarily from cod liver oil and fatty fish and in small amounts from organ meats and animal fats. Newborns of mothers with high DHA during the last three months of pregnancy exhibited healthier sleep patterns than others.21
Fetal brain development depends on adequate choline, which is especially important for the formation of cholinergic neurons (neurons that use the neurotransmitter acetylcholine). This process takes place from day fifty-six of pregnancy through three months postpartum. Choline is needed for the formation of synapses, the connections between these neurons, which form at a high rate through the fourth year of life. Rats fed three times the normal choline requirement during pregnancy gave birth to offspring with very resilient nervous systems. These offspring had a lifelong 30 percent increase in visuospatial and auditory memory; they grew old without developing any age-related senility; they were protected against the assaults of neurotoxins; they had an enhanced ability to focus on several things at once; and they had a much lower rate of interference memory.22
In addition, choline protects the fetus from chronic stress-related illness later in life. When Mom is under stress during pregnancy, the levels of stress hormones in baby also rise, leading to reduced ability to deal with stress after birth.23 Extra choline during the third trimester protects against this unfortunate outcome.24 The best sources of choline are liver, egg yolks and full-fat grass-fed dairy foods.
THIS CURSORY LOOK AT THE nutrients needed for optimal fetal development and the subsequent development of the child throws a spotlight on the glaring disconnect between what the science tells us and what passes for conventional nutritional advice for pregnant and lactating women, and young children. Science tells us that those “empty” saturated fats—animal fats and the nutrients they contain—are essential for conception, development and growth; that women need to consume egg yolks, liver, butter, whole milk, cheese, seafood, cod liver oil, meat fats and poultry fats prior to conception and during pregnancy. Science validates the practices of traditional peoples who consumed fatty nutrient-dense animal foods in order to have healthy babies. Yet today, our government and medical establishment warn pregnant women not to eat these nutrient-rich foods.
Modern expectant mothers are faced with so much conflicting information and advice—including studies purporting to show that saturated fat is bad for the pregnant woman and her developing baby. These studies have pushed many an expectant mother toward a nutrient-poor diet based on polyunsaturated vegetable oils, or toward a diet severely lacking in vital fats.
The foods Mom needs while pregnant also ensure that she has healthy breast milk. A common myth about breastfeeding is that a woman’s diet has little effect on nutrient levels in her breast milk. Yet all breast milk composition is not the same—levels of vitamins, minerals and key fatty acids can vary widely from mother to mother. When investigators in Iceland looked at levels of the all-important fat-soluble vitamins in breast milk, they found that women who took cod liver oil had higher levels of vitamins A, D and E in their milk. Supplementation with cod liver oil supplying about 5,000 IU vitamin A and 130 IU vitamin D per day resulted in breast milk that met the recommended intake of vitamin A for infants but fell short of the recommended intake for vitamin D.25 The cod liver oil used was very low in vitamin D—the result of modern processing techniques. It would be interesting to repeat the study using high-vitamin cod liver oil to supply at least 500 IU vitamin D per day.
Low vitamin D levels in mother’s milk can also cause breastfed infants to develop rickets. Adequate intake of vitamin D can increase breast milk concentrations to 400 IU per liter. Dr. Catherine Gordon of Boston Children’s Hospital recommends regular supplementation of vitamin D to nursing mothers after finding widespread deficiency in mothers and cases of rickets in their breastfed infants.26 But vitamin D–rich foods with their cofactor of vitamin A continue to provide a better way to nourish the breastfed infant than supplements alone.
A 1992 study carried out in Indonesia found that mothers who received vitamin A supplementation had higher levels in their blood and milk than those who received a placebo, and that the infants of the supplemented group were less likely to be vitamin A deficient.27 Deficiency was measured by the presence of conjunctivitis in the eyes. Incidence of conjunctivitis fell in infants nursing from mothers taking a vitamin A supplement. The authors noted that vitamin A status was lowest in women who were thin and who already had given birth to many babies.
Many theories have attempted to explain the mysterious tragedy of crib death or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)—vaccinations, milk allergies, permapress linens, and pesticides or formaldehyde outgassing from plastic mattress covers. A study published in Sweden points to another possible cause—deficiency in vitamin A. Researchers found that SIDS was much more common among children who had not received the supplementation of vitamins A and D that is customary in Norway and Sweden. This effect was statistically significant in Norway and Sweden, but not in Denmark, where babies get vitamin D supplementation alone, without vitamin A. The odds ratios remained significant in Sweden when an adjustment was made for confounding factors, including socioeconomic status. The researchers explained: “We found an association between increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome and infants not being given vitamin supplementation during their first year of life. This was highly significant in Sweden, and the effect is possibly connected with vitamin A deficiency.”28
Levels of choline in a mother’s milk depend on her dietary intake.29 Choline is essential for the development of the brain and nervous system in the fetus, infant and child. The best dietary sources are egg yolks and liver. Liver is usually the first weaning food among primitive peoples; in Asian folk tradition, egg yolks are fed to infants so they will grow up smart. Liver and egg yolks should be the weaning foods for all infants, but in the United States, babies get rice cereal. Not long ago you could buy canned liver, meat and egg yolks for your baby, which manufacturers advertised as promoting good health and good growth. These have disappeared, replaced with canned fruits and vegetables, and strange concoctions containing lean chicken meat and quinoa. Infant formula is based on powdered skim milk and vegetable oils and popular weaning foods like canned squash and applesauce hardly supply the infant with the complete range of building materials they need for a healthy body and brain.
A mother’s diet has a significant influence on the fat content of her milk as well. Traditional dietary fat in Mom’s diet increases milk fat as well as the enzymes lipase, esterase and alkaline phosphatase—all necessary for her baby’s optimal assimilation and digestion.30 Trans fats found in processed and commercial fried foods will lower the fat content of mother’s milk, a discovery made in research on mice.31 In humans, margarine containing trans fat reduces milk fat in lean women, whereas butter consumption increases the levels of antimicrobial short-and medium-chain fatty acids as well as cholesterol in breast milk.32 Cholesterol is so important to a developing infant that mother’s milk contains special enzymes to ensure that baby absorbs 100 percent of it.33 Cholesterol is critical to the formation of the brain and nervous system, as well as the “second brain”—the digestive tract.
Mother’s milk contains AA and DHA, the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that babies need for the development of their nervous systems. These special fats accumulate in the brain and retina and likely protect the infant from learning disabilities and reduced visual acuity. The presence of AA and DHA in the tissues of a growing infant is largely determined by the levels in the milk the baby consumes.34 These fatty acids are vital for an infant’s optimal development, a fact so important that even commercial formula makers now include AA and DHA in their products. What is less well known is the fact that the levels of AA and DHA in human breast milk greatly depend on the mother’s diet. An important 1997 study compared the fatty acid composition of breast milk of mothers in two Chinese provinces with that of Canadian mothers.35 Mothers in the traditional province of Chongqing had higher levels of milk fat than those from westernized Hong Kong, and higher levels of AA, due to a period of special feeding, during which Chongqing mothers consume up to ten eggs per day and large amounts of chicken and pork for the first four weeks after the birth. The diet of Hong Kong mothers was much lower in fat and calories, but because of high fish consumption, their levels of DHA were as high as those of Chongqing mothers. But breast milk levels of AA and DHA in both provinces were much higher than those of Canadian mothers eating a Westernized diet.
Arachidonic acid is critical to early neurological development. In one study, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, infants (eighteen months of age) given supplemental arachidonic acid for seventeen weeks demonstrated significant improvements in intelligence, as measured by the Mental Development Index.36 This effect is further enhanced by the simultaneous supplementation of DHA with AA. According to one study, babies born to vegetarian women have lower levels of DHA and AA in their blood.37
Expectant mothers today receive advice that is conflicting and often wrong. In this atmosphere of confusion, we can do no better than reevaluate the dietary choices of isolated, so-called primitive peoples—the practices described by Dr. Weston A. Price—which emphasized foods rich in cholesterol; in vitamins A, D and K2; and in AA and DHA for optimal health in newborns and indeed throughout life. Modern science completely validates these traditional practices.
IDEAL BREAST MILK CONTAINS HIGH levels of saturated fat as well. Saturated fats in mother’s milk stimulate her baby’s immune system and work synergistically with DHA and AA to maintain them in the tissues where they belong.38 Levels of fat in a mother’s milk will decrease with each baby unless she takes special care to consume high levels of nutrient-dense fats between pregnancies, during pregnancy and during each lactation.39
Nearly half the fatty acids in human breast milk are saturated, suggesting that dietary saturated fats are critical to the development of infants and young children.40 Saturated fats are so important during these critical stages of development that their abundant presence in breast milk is universal among mammals. The biochemical reason is clear: saturated fats make up nearly half of our cell membranes, where they anchor proteins to specific locations, participate in signaling activities and transport cellular components. They also form an important source of energy and, of course, carry the all-important fat-soluble vitamins. Most importantly, they support the formation of sex hormones, needed for conception and created in copious quantities during pregnancy.
It would therefore seem illogical to insist that a diet rich in saturated fats is harmful to either an expectant mother or her unborn child, yet many scientists in recent years have claimed to show just that. One recent study, for example, claimed that a “high-saturated-fat diet” fed to pregnant and lactating rat dams caused obesity and brain inflammation in the dams and their pups.41 What media reports never mention, however, is the fact that the fat used in these diets was only about one-third saturated. Another third was monounsaturated, and the remaining third was polyunsaturated, meaning these diets were much lower in saturated fat and six times richer in polyunsaturated fat than breast milk. The fat, moreover, was provided in the context of a diet based on purified sugar, starch and milk protein, with added supplements of vitamins and minerals—not diets of whole foods. In this study, negative effects likely result from the refined ingredients rather than from their modest content of saturated fat.
Several human studies have also attempted to blame problems that occur in pregnancy on saturated fat. One retrospective study found that mothers who gave birth to children with congenital heart defects ate more saturated fat than other mothers, but the difference was only 1 gram per day, which amounts to less than one-quarter teaspoon of butter.42 These same mothers also had lower intakes of niacin and riboflavin, and the authors provided no compelling reason to blame the extra gram of saturated fat in their diets.
One randomized trial examined the effect of advising pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to eat a diet that “targeted excessive saturated fat and low fiber consumption.” The aim was to reduce the blood levels of an unusual form of insulin in their infants, one that predicts the risk of future metabolic disorders. The diet was successful, but unfortunately the authors did not describe the actual diet in great enough detail to make any important conclusions.43
A final study was a randomized trial testing the effect of a “low-cholesterol, low-saturated fat diet” on pregnancy complications. The diet reduced the risk of premature delivery by tenfold44 and improved indices of blood vessel function in the umbilical artery.45 The diet, however, was not simply low in cholesterol and saturated fat. It restricted coffee and was high in fatty fish, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, olive oil, nuts, olives, seeds, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D and magnesium. With these many changes, why should we blame saturated fat or cholesterol, compounds we know to be essential to a developing human being because they are so abundant in breast milk?
Ultimately, the totality of the evidence provided by these studies suggests that pregnant and breastfeeding mothers should eat a diet based on nutrient-dense whole foods. Such a diet inevitably provides a healthy amount of saturated fat and cholesterol along with plenty of vitamins and minerals needed to keep a mother strong and produce a healthy baby.
HOW ARE ANIMAL FATS LIKE SEX? It’s a question I often ask the audience at seminars. The answer is that they are both needed for reproduction, and for that reason we have very strong instincts to indulge in both. Suppress these instincts—tell growing girls that sex is unnatural and evil, or that animal fats are unnatural and evil—and they are often shunted into unhealthy sexual expression and eating disorders.
Researchers faced an embarrassing dilemma when a recent study showed that full-fat milk products may help women conceive. Over a period of eight years, Jorge E. Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston assessed the diets of over eighteen thousand married women without a history of infertility who attempted to get pregnant or who became pregnant. During the study, over two thousand women were examined medically for infertility and four hundred thirty-eight were found to be infertile due to lack of ovulation. The researchers found that women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods per day, particularly skim milk and yogurt, increased their risk of ovulation-related infertility by more than 85 percent compared with women who ate less than one serving of low-fat dairy food per week.46 Chavarro’s advice to women wanting to conceive: consume high-fat dairy foods like whole milk and ice cream, “while at the same time maintaining their normal calorie intake and limiting their overall intake of saturated fats in order to maintain good general health.” Once a woman becomes pregnant, says Chavarro, “she should probably switch back to low-fat dairy foods.” If we need full-fat dairy foods to conceive, the logical conclusion is that the body needs the same kind of foods to carry a baby to term.*
BACK WHEN NUTRITION WAS A new science, doctors consistently recommended foods like butter, eggs, liver and cod liver oil for pregnancy and proper growth of the developing baby. Liver once a week was commonplace advice for pregnant women, and cod liver oil was a standard supplement up to the Second World War. Much of this advice stemmed from the work of American biochemist Elmer V. McCollum. His diet studies with rats and pigs—both omnivores like humans—convinced him that the healthiest diets for humans contained milk, eggs, butter, organ meats and leafy greens because these foods supported healthy growth and reproduction for the omnivorous animal. Rats on vegetarian diets had low fertility and difficulty raising their young. “They grew fairly well for a time,” he noted, “but became stunted when they reached a weight of about 60 percent normal adult size. They lived 555 days, whereas omnivores had an average span of life of 1,020 days. The vegetarians grew to be approximately half as large, and lived half as long as did their fellows which received animal food.”47
During the 1920s and 1930s Nobel Prize–winning nutritionist Sir John Boyd Orr compared the diets of impoverished Britons to those who were well off. His studies showed that providing milk to poor schoolchildren improved their health and helped them grow. To alleviate poverty and ill health, he and others in the British Medical Association recommended that the British people drink 80 percent more milk (whole milk, of course) and eat 55 percent more eggs, 40 percent more butter and 30 percent more meat—that was the advice given to the British people in 1938. The government introduced free school milk—full-fat milk—and later worked to provide eggs to all. As a consequence, child deaths from diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough fell dramatically—well before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization. Rickets also declined precipitously. Other factors helped, but the most important factor was the better nutrition that gave children a higher resistance to disease and infection. These recommendations shaped the British diet for nearly fifty years and helped achieve a life expectancy that is now among the highest in the world. Now we are told these same foods are shortening our lives—killing us with coronary heart disease.48
These dietary principles continued in Britain until after the Second World War. Food rationing ensured eggs, cod liver oil and orange juice for all children, and schools provided full-fat milk. Even up to the 1980s, full-fat milk, butter and eggs were the norm for pregnant women and growing children. Then came Dean Ornish and other high-profile promoters of a low-fat vegan or vegetarian diet. Ornish condemned what he called the “Group Five” foods—red meat, liver, butter, cream and egg yolks—which he considered worse than “Group Four” foods—doughnuts, fried pastries, cakes, cookies and pies. High-fat diets made people impotent, he pontificated. This is a strange claim considering the fact that early promoters of the same low-fat, plant-based, high-fiber diet had already attempted to take the moral high ground, claiming that red meat and high-fat foods encouraged lust and “natural urges.” Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), one of the founders of the American Vegetarian Society, preached that excessive sexual desire caused disease. He advocated a whole grain, vegetarian diet to promote chastity and curb lust. Graham advised parents never to hug and kiss their children, in order to avoid prompting sexual feelings. Boys were to sleep on hard beds to promote manliness and discourage masturbation. John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943) promoted a high-fiber, vegetarian diet to combat the twin evils of constipation and “natural urges.” He railed against sexual activity, even in marriage. His treatment for masturbation: sewing the foreskin shut with silver wire. If that didn’t work, then circumcision without anesthesia. Carbolic acid to burn the clitoris for women and girls who showed sexual tendencies. Today we recognize the dangers of demonizing our natural urges, but the low-fat diet advocated by these nutcases is enshrined as national policy. At first, the target was people “at risk” for heart disease, but children were soon drawn into the net of low-fat dogma. In the 1920s, German scientists performing autopsies on children found fatty streaks and lesions, which they claimed were indicative of atherosclerosis, and without further research, children became the target of the low-fat school of nutrition.49 In the 1960s, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute began putting children as young as four years old on cholesterol-lowering drugs—but did not follow them into adulthood to see what the long-term effects would be.50
Published in 1992, a popular vegetarian cookbook by Frances Moore Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet, suggested that a meat-free diet, low in saturated fat and cholesterol, would reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer. Lappé found another moral reason to justify a vegetarian way of life—it would reduce world hunger, energy costs and the environmental impacts of agriculture.
Many studies at that time cataloged nutrient deficiencies, especially deficiencies in vitamin A, caused by plant-based diets in the Third World. But the dietary gurus in America urged parents to throw out “cholesterol-laden high-fat foods” and give their kids a Third World vegan diet. T. Colin Campbell, director of the Cornell China Study, reported that the healthiest people are those who eat no meat or dairy products at all.*51 A vegan diet for children would protect them from heart disease and cancer later on, he claimed. The proof, he says, is that the eighty-year-old Dr. Benjamin Spock felt “much better” when he switched to a vegan diet.† Charlotte Gerson, daughter of the late Max Gerson and director of the Gerson Institute, lauded Campbell’s work and claimed that her father’s remarkable results with cancer patients were due to a vegan diet.52 She seemed to have forgotten that the main component of the Gerson diet was raw liver juice. Not to be outdone, Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, asserting that the dietary guidelines did not promote a diet “low enough in fat and rich enough in plant products to reduce the higher rates of hypertension, diabetes and prostate cancer among minorities.”‡
As pointed out by Nina Teicholz, for many years, the American Academy of Pediatrics refused to bow to NHLBI and AHA pressure. A 1986 editorial in the AAP journal Pediatrics noted that a fat-restricted diet “would affect consumption of foods currently providing high quality protein, iron, calcium and other minerals essential for growth.”53 In 1989, pediatrician Fima Lifshitz published a paper describing several cases where, following a diagnosis of heart disease, a parent had significantly reduced dietary fat and cholesterol for the whole family. Lifshitz found that the “overzealous application of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet” led to “nutritional dwarfing,” low weight gain, delayed puberty and serious vitamin deficiencies.54
In that same year, Dutch epidemiologist P. C. Dagnelie published a paper describing the nutritional status of children in the Netherlands raised on a macrobiotic regime. The diet of cereal porridges, vegetables, sesame seeds and pulses, with little or no animal foods, would certainly win AHA approval. However, the children were seriously deficient in iron, riboflavin, vitamin B12, vitamin D and calcium. He suggested supplementing the diet with “fat, fatty fish and dairy products.”55 Follow-up papers noted a high prevalence of rickets in the children, slow growth, fat and muscle wasting, and slower psychomotor development.56 Children who had increased consumption of fatty fish, dairy products or both grew more rapidly in height than children who remained on the restricted diet.
Undaunted, in 1991, the bureaucrats who administered the National Cholesterol Education Program added children over age two to the list of those receiving “dietary advice.” Since that time, parents taking their children in for their two-year-old check-up receive the same scripted lecture: give your child reduced-fat milk; avoid butter, eggs and meat fats; use margarine or tub spreads. Or as restated in 2005: “The general dietary recommendations of the AHA for those aged 2 years and older stress a diet that primarily relies on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat and nonfat dairy products, beans, fish, and lean meat.”57 Studies referenced for these recommendations abound in praise for their cholesterol-lowering effects, but none look at overall health outcomes as these children grow—such as height and weight; intellectual development; musculature; motor skills; freedom from asthma, allergies and digestive disorders; and reduced fertility.
It was in 1998 that the American Academy of Pediatrics fell in with the American Heart Association to target children with a starvation diet guaranteed to saddle them with health and behavioral problems as they enter adulthood. Clothed in platitudes—“breast feed through the first year,” “skip calorie-packed, low-nutrient foods,” “delay introducing juice until at least six months of age”—the new guidelines dictated withholding foods that growing children need most, namely animal fats and salt. “Diet changes that lower fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol intake in children and adolescents can be applied safely and acceptably,” insisted the AAP’s Committee on Nutrition.58
Since then parents are advised to feed their children lean meats, skinless chicken, “low-mercury” fish and fat-free milk. In this scheme, children don’t even get the small amount of fat in low-fat milk—it must be fat free. And they don’t get butter either, but vegetable oils and soft margarine. Plenty of whole grains (including extruded, sugar-laden, whole grain breakfast cereals) mean lots of stress on the developing intestinal tract, and salt restriction guarantees suboptimal intellectual development.*
Not to be outdone, Dr. Daniel Steinberg of the American Heart Association called for “more aggressive cholesterol control” in children by instituting a low-saturated-fat, low-cholesterol diet at seven months. Basically this means depriving growing children of eggs, butter, cheese, whole milk, liver and red meat, which supply, among many other nutrients, choline and arachidonic acid, necessary for brain development. And how do these guardians of the nation’s health propose to implement such a goal? The language in the report is chilling: “It would, of course, take generations to achieve and would require an all-out commitment of money and manpower to reeducate and modify the behavior of the nation. Is this impossible? No. We have already shown that even a frankly addictive behavior like cigarette smoking can be overcome (eventually) with the right combination of education, peer pressure, and legislation [emphasis ours].”59
For decades the USDA has promoted a low-fat, high-fiber, mostly plant-based diet for the general population, schematically presented in the form of a pyramid. Then in 2007, the USDA came up with My Pyramid for Moms, enshrining the same low-fat suggestions in stone for pregnant women. The guidelines urged expectant moms to eat lean meat, skinless chicken breasts, nonfat milk and dairy products, vegetables and fruits, lots of grains and pasta—and to avoid butter—while carrying their developing child. The same diet is recommended for breastfeeding also. It is impossible to find words harsh enough to describe this evil, baseless plan—one guaranteed to result in more low-birth-weight babies, more birth defects, more miscarriages, more health problems, more behavior disorders, more learning problems and more suffering for both children and parents than ever before—especially with the big promotion it received from columnists like Sally Squires of the Washington Post’s Lean Plate Club, who described the new plan as “a savvy way to be a healthier new mom.”60
In 2011, the USDA replaced their food pyramid with a new schematic: MyPlate. But the diet is not much different than that of the Pyramid, featuring lean meat, low-fat dairy products and plenty of grains. The main difference is higher levels of polyunsaturated oils—namely soy and canola oils. The 2008 publication MyPlate for Moms, How to Feed Yourself & Your Family Better, by Elizabeth M. Ward, MS, RD, continues to demonize saturated fats while promoting tub spreads and polyunsaturated oils. The recipes shun all animal fats—not a dab of butter is allowed for growing children. Low-fat cheese, skim milk, low-fat sour cream, low-fat yogurt, lean meat and skinless chicken breasts feature in the recipes. “Lower-fat animal and plant foods should dominate your protein choices,” says Ward, “no matter what your age or stage in life.”61
AND WHAT IS THE RESULT of these “prudent” low-fat dietary choices for our children? News reports from a variety of sources paint an ominous picture of their health, from infancy through adolescence. While scientists and nutritionists are still studying the link between low-fat diets and childhood illness and disability, the array of correlating research is telling.
Starting with the growing problem of premature birth, one baby in eight is now born before thirty-seven weeks, according to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine,62 a rate that has increased more than 30 percent in the last twenty years—and surveys indicate that preterm births correlate with more processed food in the mother’s diet.63 Most hospitals have invested in expanded premie wards—which are always full and which provide a significant source of revenue for these institutions.
Childhood learning disabilities and emotional problems have also reached epidemic proportions. A report from the 2003 National Survey of Children’s Health found that one child in two hundred was autistic and about 20 percent of all children had learning disabilities or attention deficit disorder.64 Today the number is much higher—one child in sixty is autistic with a rate of one in two predicted within a couple of decades. The consequences for these children and their families can be life altering. “Children with developmental problems had lower self-esteem, more depression and anxiety, more problems with learning, more missed school, and were less involved in sports and other community activities. Their families experienced more difficulty in the areas of childcare, employment, parent-child relationships and caregiver burden.”65
Other news reports describe children lining up for morning medications while at summer camp—including medication for depression and a host of medications for attention deficit disorder66; and bans on games of tag, touch football and soccer at elementary schools because children are getting injured too easily.67 The latest U.S. census has found that one in every twelve U.S. children and teenagers—more than five million—has a physical or intellectual disability. The figures, which cover children ages five to twenty, are the first collected on childhood disability in the census in more than a century. Special education enrollment has risen twice as fast as overall school enrollment in the past decade, and a growing number of children receive federal Social Security payments because they suffer from serious disabilities.68
Meanwhile, reports trickle in about the importance of cholesterol and animal fats for the proper development and overall health of our children. A study by Dutch scientists found that daily consumption of whole milk and butter was linked with significantly reduced rates of asthma and wheezing.69 Another study found that a high-fat diet protects brain cells in children who have seizures (a condition that affects one in every twenty-five children and 1 percent of adults70). And children whose mothers took cod liver oil during pregnancy and lactation scored higher on intelligence tests.71 And finally, an unpublished report on holoprosencephaly, a birth defect associated with cognitive impairment and facial deformity, found that the condition occurs in infants whose mothers have low levels of cholesterol. Regarding these findings, Judith Hall, professor of pediatrics and medical genetics at the Children and Women’s Health Center of British Columbia in Vancouver, stated: “One of the concerns beginning to emerge is that our fad for low-cholesterol may be good for heart disease that affects adults later in life, but may be bad for the embryo and the fetus.”72 With our children’s health at risk, we need to express this more strongly: the fad for low-fat, low-cholesterol diets is bad enough for adults, but for children it has been an absolute disaster.
WORRY ABOUT OBESITY IS A big factor in getting moms to conform to low-fat dietary guidelines. The premise is that saturated fat—but not unsaturated fats and not carbohydrates—cause obesity. Not even babies are safe from intervention. Traditional wisdom deems a chubby baby a healthy baby, a joy to behold, a baby asking to be cuddled—a well-nourished child will turn that baby fat into muscle, as it is easier for the child to make muscle out of fat than out of nothing. Now officials are claiming obesity starts in the womb. Intensely worried parents have even gone as far as putting their babies on special diets. In one extreme case, a Washington State couple was found guilty of starving their baby by putting laxatives in her bottle so she wouldn’t gain weight.73 Some parents simply restrict food choices for their infants, especially those containing healthy fats. How can parents be blamed when they get such mixed messages from the so-called experts? “We need to stop the notion that fat, cuddly, cute babies are a good thing,” says Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, chairman of the nutrition committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But then Bhatia moans, “I have seen parents putting their infant and one-year-old on diets because of history [of obesity] of one parent or another.” The experts have lots of suggestions, including breastfeeding, frequent checkups at the pediatrician, and withholding the bottle when baby cries—everything but what growing infants really need, that is, nutrient-dense foods to support the optimal development of the endocrine system and ensure a complete supply of nutrients so that overeating becomes unnecessary.74
The premise that saturated fats, rather than unsaturated fats, cause obesity does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Baby fat is normal and healthy, but signs of obesity often appear somewhat later, in childhood. Researchers in Southampton, UK, found that mothers who have higher levels of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in their bloodstream during pregnancy have fatter children.75 Additionally, new results from experiments using animal models show that a high intake of omega-6 from vegetable oils leads to overproduction of signaling compounds that stimulate the appetite, with the result that the animals ate more and developed obesity.76
The notion that saturated fats cause obesity has led to draconian policies in schools and day-care centers. Children are no longer allowed full-fat milk at lunch—their choices are reduced-fat milk or “flavored” beverages made with skim milk powder and sweeteners.* The result is more obesity, not less, as discovered in a 2006 Swedish study, which looked at two hundred thirty families in Göteborg, Sweden. Almost all of the children were breastfed until five months and 85 percent had parents who were university educated. Seventeen percent were classified as overweight, and a higher body mass index (BMI) was associated with a lower fat intake—and those on lower fat diets consumed more sugar. A lower fat intake was also associated with high insulin resistance.77
The 2010 Nutrition Guidelines went further than ever before. Previously, the recommendation for children over the age of two was reduced-fat milk (usually 2 percent milk), yet the new guidelines stipulated fat-free milk for this age group. A mother whose son was in the Dickinson College Children’s Center (DCCC), a day-care center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, received the following letter: “Dear DCCC Families: On October 3, 2011, in order to meet the recommendations of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines of Americans, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is requiring its Centers to serve fat-free milk to children ages two and up. Because we participate in this program for morning and afternoon snack, in order for our snacks to be reimbursed by the CACFP, we will be required to make the change from 2% to fat-free milk.”
Such policies can only lead to more obesity. Researchers from the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that after adjusting for ethnic and economic factors, children who drank skim or 1 percent milk had higher body mass index scores that those who drank whole or 2 percent milk. “We found that among pre-schoolers, consumption of 1 percent skim milk was associated with overweight and obesity,” concluded the authors.78 Many children compensate for fat deprivation by bingeing on ice cream, which with its load of sugar is bound to contribute to weight gain.
In a recent study, one hundred fifty girls ages eight to ten were put on low-fat diets to “reduce elevated cholesterol levels” while a similar group consumed a normal diet. After five years, the average estrogen and progesterone levels were almost one-third lower in the group assigned to the low-fat diet.79 (Similar studies in adults show a drop in estrogen in women and a decline in testosterone in men on low-fat diets.) Rather than issue a warning on these alarming results—how can these girls expect normal reproduction with lowered hormone levels?—the researchers proposed that the reduced hormonal output might protect them from breast cancer later in life! This speculation emerged as headlines stating “Eat Less Fat and Stave Off Breast Cancer” in some newspapers.
IN ADDITION TO AVOIDING HEART disease and obesity, the other reason given for restricting fats in children older than two years is the assumption that neurological development is complete by that age. We now know that neurological development continues well into adulthood; indeed we are always growing new neurons, and the brain and nervous system need appropriate nourishment throughout life.
Physicians have always blamed the surge of hormones at puberty for reckless adolescent behavior, but neuroscientists have come up with a different explanation. Beginning around age eleven, the area of the brain associated with social behavior and impulse control actually sprouts a tangle of nerve cells. After puberty, this thicket of nerve sprouts is “pruned.” About half the new nerve fibers are cut away to create an efficient network of circuits. The new wiring allows the adult to manage “executive functions” such as goal setting, priority setting, planning, organization and impulse inhibition.80 Now consider the fact that most American children are denied the kind of fats the brain needs when they are put on low-fat milk and tub spreads at the age of two. How does the brain get fed during this period of delicate rewiring? The answer is that many teenagers enter adulthood not fully wired, and unable to participate in those kinds of activities that give pleasure and a sense of meaning to adults—goal-oriented behavior, priority setting, planning, organization and the kind of patient follow-through that requires impulse inhibition.
Researchers in Kenya have published findings that should give pause to those promoting low-fat vegetarianism in children. The study looked at four groups of children. One group received a plant-based stew with added meat, one group got stew without meat plus whole milk, one group got the stew with added oil, and the fourth group served as a control. Students got the special meals for five consecutive terms. Those getting the stew plus meat showed significantly greater improvements in test scores than those in all the other groups, while those getting the stew plus milk outperformed those getting the stew with oil and the control group. The researchers credited increased folate, iron, vitamin B12, zinc and riboflavin as nutrients that contributed to better cognitive function, but the saturated fats in the meat and whole milk certainly played an important role.81
A provocative new study suggests that human intelligence is on the decline, and in fact indicates that Westerners have lost fourteen IQ points since the Victorian era. The researchers looked at studies on visual reaction times—how long it takes to press a button in response to seeing stimulus. Reaction time reflects a person’s mental processing speed, and so is considered an indication of general intelligence. Since the late nineteenth century, visual reaction times have increased from an average of 194 milliseconds to 275.82 According to the head researcher, Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis, the decline is due to the fact that women of intelligence are having fewer children; in fact, he says, the decline may be even greater than what the study results suggest because of environmental factors, “such as better education, hygiene and nutrition.” These factors may mask the true, steeper decline in “genetically inherited intelligence in the Western world.”83 No one is considering the possibility that nutrition is a bigger factor than genetics when it comes to intelligence, and that in fact, our nutrition is getting worse. How can we expect anything but decline when our babies and growing children are deprived of the very things they need to develop normal brains: cholesterol and saturated fat.
Not all countries are as zealous about restricting fats as our own. In a major departure, new Canadian guidelines say parents should be offering their six-month-old infants puréed meat, fish and poultry two or three times a day. (Unfortunately, they also allow “meat alternatives” for baby.) According to the guidelines, these iron-rich foods should be the first that babies consume—not cereal and vegetables. “Traditionally, we’ve been telling parents that meat is the last food to introduce,” said Daina Kalnins, manager of clinical dietetics at the Hospital for Sick Children. “But when you look at why, there is no reason to do that.” Iron is critical for a baby’s growth and cognitive development. By about six months, a baby’s iron stores start to diminish; those solely fed breast milk will not meet their iron requirements and are in danger of becoming anemic or iron-deficient. According to Kalnins, iron deficiency during infancy and childhood may affect proper brain development. Interestingly, the guidelines mention that meat and fish have been traditional first foods for some aboriginal groups. Parents are urged to make baby’s food, puréeing meat and fish with water. Unfortunately, they recommend leaving out salt. Still, the recommendation to introduce meat early is a real step forward in baby care.84
One of the dangers of a cholesterol-lowering diet for children is anemia. Without meat to supply iron, and without organ meats and animal fats to supply vitamin A (needed for iron assimilation), children are at great risk of deficiency. In addition to lowered IQ, anemia in young children manifests as follows: “Infants with chronic, severe iron deficiency have been observed to display increased fearfulness, unhappiness, fatigue, low activity, wariness, solemnity, and proximity to the mother during free play, developmental testing and at home. In a recent preventative trial in Chile, ratings after thirty to forty-five minutes of developmental testing showed that, compared with infants who received iron supplementation, a greater percentage of unsupplemented infants never smiled, never interacted socially, and never showed social referencing.”85
Anemia is a major health concern for children in developing countries. In a study of children in Bangladesh, vitamin A supplementation proved to be the most successful micronutrient intervention for treating the debilitating condition.86 The researchers noted that no sign of improvement appears with iron supplementation programs. While American medical personnel are hell-bent on demonizing vitamin A—and frightening parents away from giving their children sources of vitamin A like butter, liver and cod liver oil—researchers in other parts of the world are developing a grudging appreciation for the role of vitamin A in mineral metabolism.
Reasons for taking cod liver oil—and giving it to children—just keep piling up. A recent clinical trial found that supplementation with a multivitamin containing selenium together with cod liver oil can reduce rates of ear infections in children.87 In the study, five of seven children who had experienced frequent ear infections had none while taking the supplements. The study authors also found that children suffering from ear infections had lower levels of vitamin A, selenium and EPA compared to healthy adults. Cod liver oil provides EPA and vitamin A—and probably helps in the absorption of selenium also.
RAMPANT TOOTH DECAY IS EMERGING as a serious problem in children, even as young as two years of age. Dentists regularly see preschoolers with ten cavities at a time; according to an American Dental Association spokesman, the problem is “so severe that they often recommend using general anesthesia because young children are unlikely to sit through such extensive procedures while they are awake.”88 While dentists rightly warn parents about feeding sweets and fruit juice to children, their only real solution to the problem is drill and fill. The notion that teeth can heal themselves is completely foreign to the dental profession. Yet as far back as 1928, Julian D. Boyd, MD, and C. L. Drain, DDS, of Iowa City reported “numerous instances of definite arrest of caries in children. Teeth containing large cavities, which ordinarily would have an area of softened dentin surrounding the zone of destruction, were found instead to be very dense.” The doctors made the fascinating observation that all the children with cavities that reversed and healed were diabetics who had been put on a high-fat, low-carb diet for blood sugar control. The regimen consisted of “milk, cream, butter, eggs, meat, cod liver oil, bulky vegetables and fruits. The daily menu was designed to include approximately one quart of milk and cream daily.” Levels of vitamins and minerals in the diet were high. The doctors concluded that oral hygiene had little to do with dental health, and that resistance to dental decay was due mainly to a nutrient-dense diet during the period of growth.89
Cheese is one of the victims of modern diet theories—if cheese is allowed at all, it must be low-fat, say the pundits. Researchers have found that babies born to women who consume cheese during pregnancy are likely to have better dental health than babies born to non–cheese consumers. Surprisingly, this research took place at the Fukuoka University, University of Tokyo and Osaka City University. The researchers looked at the long-term effects of prenatal cheese and dairy consumption on an infant’s tooth development, tracking three hundred fifteen Japanese mother-and-child pairs, recording prenatal diets and performing dental examinations of children between forty-one and fifty months of age. The study found a strong connection between cheese consumption during pregnancy and decreased risk of childhood dental caries, such as tooth decay and cavities.90 Ironically, the results were not related to calcium intake. “Components of cheese other than calcium might be responsible for the protective effects of maternal cheese intake against dental caries in children,” the researchers said. In fact, cheese is a perfect food for developing strong teeth (and bones) with its content of vitamins A, D and K2, along with calcium, phosphorus and other minerals—as long as it is full-fat cheese. There was no evident relationship between maternal milk intake and the risk of childhood dental caries, suggesting that cheese from pasteurized milk is a better choice for pregnant moms than pasteurized milk.
Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the organizations responsible for replacing healthy saturated fats with toxic trans fats in the American food supply, objects to local food for school lunches because the children might end up eating “full-fat cheese from a local farmer, and it’s still going to clog your arteries and give you heart disease.”91
UNFORTUNATELY, THE FOOD POLICE SEEM more determined than ever to remove the last scrap of animal fat from children’s diets. In an article on obesity in the October 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, authors Jill Reedy and Susan M. Krebs-Smith bemoan the fact that, “Nearly 40 percent of total calories consumed by 2–18 year olds were in the form of empty calories from solid fat and from added sugars. Half of empty calories came from six foods.” And which are the foods contributing to “empty” calories? Soda, fruit drinks, dairy desserts, grain desserts, pizza… and whole milk.”92 Dairy desserts (that is, conventional ice cream), pizza, and conventional whole milk, while not optimal, at least provide desperately needed saturated fats in the diets of growing children. The proposed solution: a starvation diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nonfat milk and lean meat.
Describing her family’s eating habits as a “bacon-and-eggs” diet when her husband first took office, Michelle Obama then took a wrong turn and used her influence to promote a lean diet based largely on fruits and nonstarchy vegetables for schoolchildren. Under the three-billion-dollar National School Lunch Program, participating schools can provide only one serving of meat or other protein (more well-off children can buy a second portion each day with their own dime). There’s no butter for the dry brown bread (which the children do not like), and no whole or even 2 percent milk. Worst of all, there’s a calorie cap of 850 calories for high schoolers, 700 for middle schoolers and a mere 650 calories for kids in elementary schools—so even potatoes are limited to a single small serving and ketchup packets are rationed to one per student. Parents complain that their kids are starving, and the kids say the food “tastes like vomit.” Across the country, some wealthier suburban school districts are simply backing out of the program, although doing so means giving up a six-figure annual subsidy from the federal government.93 Last year the New York City school system dropped out after the students complained of starvation, and an Illinois school district dumped the guidelines before even fully implementing them.94
A 2007 USDA survey found that almost 90 percent of Americans “are still choosing diets out of sync with dietary guidance.”95 Proposals to induce compliance include use of prepaid cards in grocery stores and schools that prohibit purchase of “unhealthy” foods; encouragement of online food ordering with less “tempting” options; and more restrictions on food stamp and school meal programs.96 The Arizona health director has issued an edict forbidding participants in the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program from using their coupons to purchase whole milk. They must buy low-fat, skim or soy milk. And only 16 ounces of cheese is allowed per month.97 The program has also cut back on eggs, allowing only one dozen per month. Similar guidelines are now in place in many other states. Even during the austerity of the Second World War, British rationing regulations allowed one egg per child per day.
Schoolchildren are not only targets for manipulation via diet; they also find themselves in the headlights of the pharmaceutical industry. If we need any proof that our culture has completely sacrificed the health and well-being of future generations to financial interests, consider the 2008 recommendations for “wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs, starting as early as the age of eight.”98 Why do we need these draconian measures? In “hopes” of preventing adult heart problems. Since cholesterol-lowering measures have not stemmed the tide of heart disease, the hope of preventing heart disease using the same measures in children is a vain hope indeed. The new guidelines come from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which admits that there is not “a whole lot of data” on pediatric use of cholesterol-lowering drugs but that the drugs are “generally safe for children.”99
Taking things one step further, the pharmaceutical industry is targeting children with a chewable cholesterol-lowering product! In 2010, Pfizer, Inc., announced that the European Commission had approved a chewable form of Lipitor for use in children over the age of ten. Pfizer’s Lipitor is the best-selling medicine worldwide, with sales of over eleven billion dollars in 2009. But revenues are steadily dropping so children are the natural targets for boosting lagging sales.100
FDA lists statins in category X for pregnancy, along with thalidomide and Accutane—meaning that they should never be taken by pregnant women.101 They are teratogens, with the potential to cause horrible birth defects. For this reason, the March of Dimes has opposed over-the-counter statin sales—women might respond to advertising for the drugs and take them during the early stages of pregnancy. But researchers at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery have pregnant women in their sights. They tested statins on mice with a condition called antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), which can cause miscarriages, and found that biochemical markers indicative of better pregnancy outcome improved. Now they are claiming that statins should be given to women with APS-induced pregnancy complications. Guillermina Girardi, PhD, lead author of the study, claims that statins are perfectly safe for pregnant women and that a trial involving pregnant women is needed.102 Even if birth defects do not manifest, low cholesterol during pregnancy is tied to premature birth.103
According to a recent study carried out at the University of Rome, low cholesterol levels in children are also associated with an increased risk for attentional impulsivity with mood symptoms. “Impulsivity is directly mentioned in the… diagnostic criteria for several disorders and is implied in the criteria for others, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, personality disorders, mania, and substance abuse/dependence,” writes study author Alfonso Troisi in the journal Psychiatry Research. Troisi notes that “evidence linking impulsivity and cholesterol levels to suicide risk attests to the clinical relevance of studying the relationship between cholesterol levels and impulsivity.” In the study of three hundred one patients in psychiatric institutions, after accounting for factors such as age, gender, diagnosis and current mood symptoms, the researchers found that lower total cholesterol levels were significantly associated with increased attentional impulsivity, particularly among patients with levels below 165 mg/dl. Troisi concludes: “The current study adds to the growing body of evidence pointing to the association between serum cholesterol and mental health… Considering that attentional/cognitive impulsivity is a demonstrated risk factor for suicide, patients presenting with low cholesterol and mood symptoms may warrant increased clinical attention and surveillance.”104 If low cholesterol is associated with increased impulsivity in adults, it makes sense that low cholesterol in children curses them with the same effects.
A GREAT BODY OF RESEARCH shows us that animal foods rich in cholesterol and saturated fat are fundamental to normal growth, development and behavior in children. Many years in the future we will look back on this benighted age as one professing to love children while feeding them in a way that results in their profound unhappiness. But the epidemic of poor health in our children today is not without a silver lining; many parents are waking up to the need for nutrient-dense, high-fat animal foods starting before conception and continuing throughout the years of growth. While scientists have yet to formally study these children, reports from their parents uniformly record optimal growth, straight teeth, keen intelligence and good disposition in their offspring.105 Perhaps the day will come when all young people will learn the principles of good nutrition before conception, and when all health professionals will support prospective parents with the knowledge they need to produce optimally healthy babies.