Updated 08-04-2024
I propose that the most senseless crimes are due to the perp having reverted to an H. erectus behavioral mode due to a combination of stress and insufficient protein consumption. I propose that the appropriate treatment is a one-week regimen of consumption of 370 grams daily wet-weight basis (the amount I have personally tried) of fish, poultry, or red meat. Carbohydrates and fresh vegetables must be included in the diet for nutritional balance. Additional hydration will also be needed. I conjecture that the amino acid arginine is the active ingredient, but this has not been tested. I have personally finished a self-designed six-day arginine regimen based on poultry, and the early results, based on mental contents rather than overt behavior, are promising. After a big protein feed, it takes me three hours to start feeling my oats, after which nothing seems to trouble me.
Arginine stimulates the secretion of the peptide hormone glucagon, which has an action opposite to that of insulin, raising blood sugar rather than lowering it. Under conditions of low blood sugar, people are known to experience fear and irritability. Increased glucagon secretion will remedy low blood sugar if energy stores are available. Arginine is a semi-essential amino acid: not usually required in the diet of adults but required in the diet of young people and adults experiencing stress, injury, or infection. Therefore, if the person is stressed, experiencing low blood sugar, and eating a diet low in arginine, secretion of glucagon may not be sufficient to correct low blood sugar levels promptly, so that low mood may last long enough for the planning of a felony. They could be said to suffer from “arginism.”(Arginine also stimulates the secretion of insulin, but this effect is not relevant to conditions of low blood sugar.)
H. erectus was the evolutionary forerunner of ourselves and ate a great deal of game (for an omnivore). I conjecture that their prominent dispersal tendency was due to fighting over meat when it became scarce from overhunting, and this fighting led to ejection of refugees from the hunting group and thus dispersal. The prominent brow ridges of this species may have been selected in evolution as protection for the eyes during this fighting, and eyesight is extremely important to a hunter.
Reductions in plasma concentrations of the amino acid arginine, which is abundant in meat, may have come to represent meat scarcity in evolution and become a trigger for savage infighting via an indirect effect on blood sugar levels via glucagon suppression. I theorize that as a result, today people shift into an H. erectus-like behavioral mode whenever the price of food rises relative to wages, a process that can destroy civilizations. This may be exacerbated by a misguided reduction in dietary protein intake for economic reasons. (Nowadays, this would be compounded by an additional folly: saving the planet from greenhouse gas emissions by not eating meat.) I recommend that those experiencing financial stress or job loss increase their protein intake, not decrease it, for example, increase it to 100 grams/day, dry-weight of protein basis, for men, but use inexpensive sources like seeds, chicken, or low-mercury fish (salmon) that have a good arginine content. Arginine supplements would be a very inexpensive remedy, but I cannot recommend them now because the idea is untested by me personally. However, the review article cited below gives the green light to arginine supplement use by humans.
If adopted by an entire population, a high-arginine/protein regimen could easily increase the birth rate, all other things being equal. This idea is based on evolutionary-psychological reasoning, and also on how the regimen makes me feel. Maybe all other things do not have to be equal.
The metabolism of arginine is linked to that of lysine by regulatory factors, so the dietary uptake of arginine should not exceed 2.5 x that of lysine. This issue will not arise if meat, flax seed, or chickpeas is the source of arginine. Divided daily doses of arginine totaling not more than 9 grams, pure arginine basis, seem recommendable based on the online literature, the full text being available on researchgate.net, doi: 10.1007/s00726-008-0210-y
Picture credits: left, yusuf-dundar-l9ctwXKee0k-unsplash.jpg; right, screenshot from Wikipedia page, The Winged Victory.
