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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
18:49
The Bomb in the Brain Part 1 - The True Roots of Human Violence
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Hello everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
This is True News.
The bomb in the brain.
The aftermaths of child abuse.
Part 104.
So what is the purpose behind this series?
Well, we can't heal the world.
We can't make the world peaceful and loving until we know why it is violent and hateful.
We can't heal the world until we know why it is sick.
And the main causes of violence, drug addiction, promiscuity, suicidality, and other dysfunctions are very clear.
There's no doubt about it at all.
The data has been around for quite a long time but remains obscure to most people.
And I guarantee you, after watching this presentation, you will never look at the world, and perhaps yourself, the same way again.
This is a four-part series.
This is the first part, The Bomb in the Brain.
The second is an interview with the director of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti.
Part three, The Psychology and Neurobiology of Violence.
And part four, Disarming the Bomb in the Brain, Cures and Healing.
So we constantly hear about risks to children in particular, risks to life and health.
Grossly misrepresented in the media and in culture as a whole.
Swine flu, BPA and baby bottles lead in children's toys.
Tiny chances to actually hurt children.
Constantly referenced, pounded over and over again.
Compared to what?
Well, compared to an incredibly prevalent problem that has lifelong effects on health and well-being, such as a 48% greater chance of contracting cancer, a reduction in lifespan of up to 20 years, massive increases in drug addiction, promiscuity, alcoholism, criminality, suicidality, depression, anxiety, and so on and so on and so on.
Do you know what it is?
Very few people know what causes these terrible risks to life and health and almost all social and violent problems that we face.
It's a shameful omission in our culture.
Let's remedy it.
Child abuse.
So I'm going to be referencing the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which is data collected from over 17,000 Kaiser patients in an ongoing retrospective and prospective study of adverse childhood experiences.
And although these are well concealed, they are unexpectedly common, have a profound negative effect on adult health and well-being a half century later, and are a prime determinant of adult health status in the United States and, we can very easily say, worldwide.
Child abuse causes physical changes within the brain.
So here, for example, is a healthy three-year-old brain on the left.
On the right, we can see from a child suffering from neglect and sensory deprivation, child abuse causes physical destruction of the brain.
So, what this study has examined is these adverse childhood experiences, and you can get a full definition of these at ACEstudy.org.
This is physical, verbal, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect.
You can take the test yourself.
I did.
And the results can be very interesting.
So this presentation will explore the relationships between adverse childhood experiences and future physical and mental health issues.
The average age of the study participant in these studies is 57 years old.
So 40-50 years after the abuse occurred.
Now, we will look at the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, but I wanted to caution you that they are almost certainly vastly underreported.
Why?
Well, the sample size in this study is middle-class, upper-middle-class participants with excellent health insurance.
It doesn't include poor drug addicts, criminals, those whose life is too disorganized to get health insurance, who, according to the study findings, would be vastly overrepresented in terms of adverse childhood experiences.
So this is almost certainly much, much, much lower than it would be with a broader cross-section of society.
And of course it relies on self-reporting which has strengths and weaknesses of course but most likely people are not going to say that they experienced abuse that they did not but they're more likely to ignore abuse that they did for a variety of psychological reasons.
Child abuse damages the efficacy of the hippocampus which stores long-term memory so people have blank spots in their childhood and we'll see the proof of this very shortly.
So let's have a look at the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences in this middle-class population.
So those who report 0.
Men, women, 30-35% who have had 0.
A smaller percentage have 1, reported 1 or 2.
Smaller still 3.
But unfortunately when we get into truly chaotic households the numbers begin to go up again quite sharply and we have some significant reporting.
A combined total of about 10% of those who have 4 or more adverse childhood experiences.
So the minority of people have 0 and the majority have 1 or more.
The biology of violence.
Over the past few decades, startling new research has come to light about the psychology and neurobiology of violence.
During the first four years of life, the latest research shows, 90% of a child's brain develops through the experiences of that child.
We are not born broken, but it is through our experiences, if they're dysfunctional, that we shall receive the brain damage that results in lifelong problems.
In the past two decades, over a hundred careful studies have shown that violence as an adult is the result of insecure or disorganized early attachments, and we'll get into the biology of that in the next presentation.
I just wanted to touch on it here.
Some more indicators, careful studies of UK childhood sexual assaults show two-thirds of girls and one-third of boys claim to have been used sexually.
US figures are comparable.
This is from a study from about 20 years ago.
Physical abuse is even more prevalent.
Two-thirds of British mothers said they routinely hit their infants in their first year of life.
And in the next two years, 97% said they hit their children at least once a week, most a good deal more often using straps, belts, canes and sticks on the boys.
A longitudinal study of 442 boys born in 1972 found that one out of every three boys, those who have a specific version of a gene who were maltreated during childhood, will be almost certain to exhibit antisocial or criminal behavior as an adult.
All too tragically, as a society, when we harm children we reap what we sow.
Child abuse is strongly linked with obesity.
In the studies that will be cited in the interview following this presentation, 66% of participants reported one or more type of abuse.
Physical abuse and verbal abuse were most strongly associated with body weight and obesity.
And obesity risks increased with number and severity of each type of abuse.
And we'll see this repeated all too tragically often in the graphs that we'll look at shortly.
Child abuse is associated with illicit drug use.
Compared with people who with zero ACEs, those with greater than or equal to five were seven to ten fold more likely to report illicit drug use problems, addiction to illicit drugs, and parental drug use.
Seem to account for one half to two thirds of serious problems with drug use.
So let's look at some of these numbers.
Along the bottom is the number of adverse childhood experiences, and on the y-axis is the percentage of people who have used hard drugs.
Those who have had no adverse childhood experiences: 0.3%, 1, 0.5%, 2, 1.4%, 3, 2.3%, greater than or equal to 4, 3.4%.
Child abuse and alcohol.
Adverse childhood experiences are strongly related to ever-drinking alcohol and to alcohol initiation in early and mid-adolescence.
And the ACE score had a graded or dose-to-response relationship to these alcohol use behaviors, and we'll see that in just a second.
Initiating alcohol use by age 14 was increased two to three-fold by individual ACEs.
ACEs also accounted for a 20-70% increased likelihood of alcohol use initiated during mid-adolescence, 15-17 years.
Let's have a look at the numbers.
Those who had no adverse childhood experiences, 2.8% became alcoholics.
Those who had one, 5.7%.
Those who had two, 10.3%.
Those who had three, 11.4%.
1, 5.7%, those who had 2, 10.3%, those who had 3, 11.4%, those with greater than or equal to 4, 16.1% became alcoholics as adults.
A powerful graded relationship exists between adverse childhood experiences and risk of attempted suicide throughout the lifespan of an individual.
The lifetime prevalence of having at least one suicide attempt was 3.8%.
Adverse childhood experiences in any category increased the risk of attempted suicide two to five-fold.
Compared with persons with no ACEs, the adjusted odds ratio of ever attempting suicide among persons with seven or more experiences was 31.1.
So these are adverse childhood experiences versus percent lifetime history of attempted suicide.
Those with 0, 1.1%.
Those with 1, 2.2%.
Those with 2, 4.0%.
3, 5.6%.
4, 8.4%.
5, 13.8%.
6, 21.8%.
7 or more.
Those with 1, 2.2%.
Those with 2, 4.0%. 3, 5.6%. 4, 8.4%. 5, 13.8%. 6, 21.8%. 7 or more.
35.2% of them have a lifetime history of attempted suicide.
Child abuse and the leading causes of death in adults.
A strong graded relationship.
That means the greater the ACEs, the greater the risks.
Exists between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.
The number of categories of adverse childhood experience exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung diseases, skeletal fractures and liver disease.
The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated, and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life.
The leading causes of death, more than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported greater than or equal to two categories of childhood exposures to these negative events.
Persons who had experienced 4 or more categories of childhood exposure compared to those who had experienced none had a 4 to 12 fold increased health risk for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and suicide attempt.
2 to 4 fold increase in smoking, poor self-rated health, greater than or equal to 50 sexual intercourse partners and sexually transmitted diseases.
A 1.4 to 1.6 fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity.
ACEs and smoking.
Those of you who've seen my interview with Alison Gopnik may remember that she talked about how smoking was an attempt to self-medicate, a lack of connectors within the brain.
So, if you've had 0 adverse childhood experiences, 5.5% likelihood to become an adult smoker.
If you've had 1, 6%, 2, 8%, 3, 10%, 4 to 5, 12%, greater than or equal to 6, 16%.
Adverse childhood experiences and chronic depression.
This is broken down between women and men.
And we can see that if you've had zero self-reported adverse childhood experiences, women have an 18% chance and men have an 11% chance of contracting chronic depression throughout a lifetime.
If you've had one, 24 for women, 19% for men.
If you've had two, 35% and 25% if you've had three, 42% and 30% if you had more than equal to four, 58% for women and 35% for men.
The difference being the classical distinction between women who aggress against themselves through depression and men who aggress against others through violence.
ACEs and antidepressant prescriptions.
This is 50 years after the abuse.
0, 32.6, 1 ACE, 50.1, 2, 65, 3 ACEs, 73, 4, 97, greater than or equal to 5, 99.5.
ACEs and hallucinations.
This is broken down between those who say they have never abused alcohol and drugs and those who say they have.
I'm not going to read off the numbers.
If you're listening to the audio, if you can please look at the presentation.
but here we can see in the chart clearly increasing hallucinatory problems whether you have or have not so we've gone from the very beginning 1.2% for those who say they haven't 2.7% for those who say they have if you've had greater than or equal to 7% 8.9% versus 10.1% A.C.E.
sexual abuse and unexplained symptoms.
This is people who show up at the doctor's office and can't say what's wrong with them.
They know that there's a problem, but they can't find any physiological basis to it.
So we can see here, the more that people have experienced these A.C.E.s, the greater the likelihood that they have a number of unexplained physiological symptoms that cause them pain and discomfort for which they cannot be found a physiological basis.
A.C.E.
is an impaired childhood memory.
Those who report significant amnesia in their childhood.
Those who've had no ACEs, 9.7%.
Those who've had one, 12.0%.
Those who've had two, 18.9%.
Those who've had three, 22.1%.
Greater than equal to four, 34%.
The brain damage that occurs through child abuse causes memory loss.
ACEs and impaired job performance.
I won't read these all off, but we can see that as you get greater and greater numbers of adverse childhood experiences, you get significantly proportionally greater absenteeism from work.
Significantly proportional and greater serious reporting of serious financial problems and serious job problems.
From 5% all the way up to 23-24%.
to 23-24%.
ACEs in teen sexual behaviors.
Again, I won't read off all these numbers, but we can see significant and correlational increases in the percentage of intercourse by 15.
Teen pregnancies, teen paternities, all increase based upon the number of adverse childhood experiences.
ACEs in promiscuity, the likelihood of having greater than or equal to 50 sexual partners over your lifetime.
1% of those who have no ACEs, 1.7% of those who have one, 2.3% of those who have two, 3.1% of those who have three greater than or equal to four, 3.2%.
ACEs in liver disease.
The A.C.E.
score here, relative to the prevalence of liver disease, goes up significantly.
Hepatitis and jaundice, of course.
This would be, of course, related to the alcoholism.
A.C.E.s and COPD.
Chronic obstructionary pulmonary disorders, I believe that is.
Breathing problems.
Those who have had zero ACEs, 6.9%, 1, 8.2%, 2, 11.1%, 3, 15.5%, greater than or equal to 4, 17.5%.
ACEs and antipsychotic prescriptions.
Here we can see again the number is not quite as solid, but definitely correlational.
Prescriptions per 100 person years.
Those who have zero around 2, those of 4 or greater than or equal to 5 at around 10.
Five times the rates of antipsychotic medication prescriptions.
times.
Anti-anxieties, ACEs and anxiolytic prescriptions.
Those who have had zero ACEs, around 15.
34 or so for those who have had greater than or equal to 5.
Now this is chilling.
ACEs and life expectancy.
ACE scores decrease with age.
So this chart, it's a little hard to read but I'll step you through it.
Those who report Zero ACEs are overrepresented in the greater than or equal to 65 age group, whereas those who report ACEs of four have a much tinier number of those who are greater than or equal to 65 years of age.
And that's because they're dead.
Life expectancy dropped for significant ACEs is about 20 years.
20 years life expectancy gets shaved off with significant child abuse on average.
It's not inexorable.
It's not inevitable.
You can do things about it, but you have to, of course, realize the risk categories first.
Intimate partner violence.
As the frequency of witnessing interpersonal violence increased, the chance of reported alcoholism, illicit drug use, intravenous drug use and depression also increased.
Exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse and intimate partner violence in childhood resulted in women being 3.5 times more likely to report being the victims of intimate partner violence.
Exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse, and IPV in childhood resulted in men being 3.8 times more likely to report IPV perpetration.
Who should we focus on?
Child abuse and neglect by relationship to victim.
In the category of other, 5.9%.
Unknown or missing, 3.9%.
unknown or missing 3.9% professionals, doctors, I would imagine priests, 1.1% unmarried partner of parent live-in boyfriend or girlfriend, 4.1% other relative, 6.5% 4.1% other relative, 6.5% parent 78.5% parent
6.5% parent 78.5% parent Well, thank you for watching this first of the four presentations.
Next, we have an interview with the director of the ACE study, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti, focusing on adverse childhood experiences and their relationship to adult obesity.
Thank you so much for watching, of course.
You can check out the references at fdrurl.com forward slash tn under bar abuse one.
And I know it's a little grim, but really you cannot understand the world and the problems that it has without understanding the long-term effects of child abuse on mental health and well-being.
This is Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
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