A lack of zinc in your diet may be making you aggressive.
(From the Geenpasture.org archive)
A fascinating article in Psychology Today focused on the origin of violent behavior. Was it nature or nutrition? Could the underlying cause be in one’s upbringing or in their genes? Or just maybe it could be some type of nutritional imbalance.
Taking the nutritional stance was William Walsh, Ph.D. and his team at the Health Research Institute in Illinois. Walsh and his colleagues published a study in Physiology & Behavior (1997) where they compared the results of blood tests given to 135 “assaultive” young males—who were between 3 and 20 years of age—to those of 18 in the control group without any history of violence. The results were staggering: The violent males had higher copper and lower zinc levels than the control group. The higher the copper and lower the zinc, the more aggressive and violent the behavior.
When the aggressive young males were treated with therapeutic doses of zinc, their aggressive episodes were substantially lessened.
Wow!
Really cool!! Other than tying certain cases of depression to nutrition, I never really thought about the food we eat from a psychological perspective. Very fascinating. Thanks for sharing!