All of the current nutritional research points in the same conclusive direction; specific nutrients are required throughout the life-span to support mental health and deficiencies may prevent conception, compromise the neurological development of the embryo and fetus, diminish a child’s ability to learn, and impair future mental health.

Health care reform begins with the next couple planning for pregnancy. It is of paramount importance that families and educational communities become familiar with the nutrients in the food we eat, their specific jobs, and understand how to “feed the brain” not just the body.

While investigating the role of dietary essential fatty acids in brain development, growth and function I had the great fortune of the tutelage of Professor Michael Crawford, the director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at the London Metropolitan University.

Jan pictured with Professor Michael Crawford, the director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at the London Metropolitan University.

Professor Crawford took me by the hand and led me in the direction of the evidence-based importance of Mom and Dad’s nutritional status prior to conception and its role in the prevention of miscarriage, low birth weight, birth defects, and neurological difficulty.

I continued researching nutrients uniquely and collaboratively in child development, finished writing my book, Nutrition For Learning; Feeding the Starving Brain, and authored the scientific paper, The Declaration of Nutrition, Health and Intelligence For The Child-To-Be published in the Nutrition and Health Journal, 2007, Vol 19, pp. 85-102. © 2007 A B Academic Publishers. Printed in Great Britain.

I dedicate my publications to my research director, Professor Michael Crawford. His brilliant, tireless scientific investigation has pioneered today’s developmental nutritional paradigm - docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as the evolutionary staple of the human brain.  [more]