Ray's Advice To Have Intelligent, Prodigy Babies

burtlancast

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
3,263
This comes from the transcribed interview Life Supporting Substances - It's Rain Making Time, 2011-07-04

Ray explains that animal studies back in the 1960’s and 70’s showed that sugar and progesterone are factors that increase brain growth development and learning ability.

The way to have precocious, prodigy babies seems thus to provide them with high glucose and high progesterone during pregnancy, and to limit polyunsaturated fats, which have exactly the opposite effects.

KG: Why did they call it brain food? I don't mean lodged in the brain, but why did they call it like it's really good for your brain? Why?

RP: Well, just about three years ago, a group in France who believed it decided to put electrodes on pregnant women to measure the fetus’s response to various sounds they could detect. And so they found that they could train the baby to respond to different sounds before it was born. And so they said: “We will demonstrate that DHA and EPA are brain food, improving the quality of the brain” by doing measurements of the ability to learn of the fetus. And they found exactly what they hadn't expected, that the brain learning response was retarded in proportion to the mother's consumption of the fish fat type of highly unsaturated fats. And after the babies were born, in fact they were underdeveloped - including the brain - which was exactly what animal experimenters had demonstrated way back in the 1970’s (when pregnant mice were put on a diet of either highly unsaturated vegetable oil or saturated fat, those babies that were exposed to the high prenatal diet of unsaturated fats had smaller brains and they didn't learn as well as those babies that had been exposed to saturated fats (they could grind up and weight the brains of mice, and so on). So, both in the recent studies in humans and the old studies in animals show that the polyunsaturated fats retard brain development, both in function and in actual size. Studies back in the 1960’s and 70’s also showed that sugar and progesterone are factors that increase brain growth development and learning ability.

KG: Did you say sugar and progesterone?

RP: Yah, for example Zamenhof was the person who discovered that a chicken's embryo brain grew rapidly as long as there was still glucose present inside the egg. And he found that the brain stopped growing as soon as the supply of glucose in the egg ran out; even though there was still a lot of energy food (the polyunsaturated fat or saturated fat), there was still enough for the body to keep growing, but the brain stopped when the glucose ran out. So, at that number of days of development, he would open the eggshell and inject a little bit of glucose or other food that was equivalent to glucose and showed that it didn't affect the body size very much, because all chickens had enough fat in the egg for the body to grow, but the brains kept growing because of the added glucose to the egg. And the chickens were born with uniquely large brains for a chicken and they were smarter than ordinary chickens.

KG: How do we process what you’ve just said, cause it can be confusing for us?

RP: Obstetricians, as recently as old people that I knew, old doctors in the 1970’s were still aware of the fact that their so-called diabetic mothers very often had extremely precocious babies. I talked to one woman who was told to go on a reducing diet because of her previous pregnancies. She had had very high blood sugar, and I asked her how that baby had turned out. She said, "Oh, he taught himself to read when he was two years old. When he was four he was already wearing adult hat sizes”, which is basically an extension of what Zamenhof demonstrated with chicken embryo development. Sugar is the limiting factor, usually, in brain development. In the 1970’s, doctors were looking for new diseases to treat, and diabetes was extended to include the very completely new concept of gestational diabetes. And where a 130 blood sugar had been considered very healthy for a pregnant woman, they now wanted to restrain the level of blood sugar during pregnancy. And they started calling it a disease. “gestational diabetes”, that really was just a healthy pregnancy in most cases.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
81
This comes from the transcribed interview Life Supporting Substances - It's Rain Making Time, 2011-07-04

Ray explains that animal studies back in the 1960’s and 70’s showed that sugar and progesterone are factors that increase brain growth development and learning ability.

The way to have precocious, prodigy babies seems thus to provide them with high glucose and high progesterone during pregnancy, and to limit polyunsaturated fats, which have exactly the opposite effects.

I had this conversation with Haidut just recently.... wondering why my second daughter was the most intelligent ( five children) I was told I was borderline diabetic and given insulin for gestational diabetes during my pregnancy with her - definitely precocious! Also I noticed head / brain size now seems smaller than my Dads generation ( he is 99!) He was fifteen pound at birth - definitely gestational diabetes way back then.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Hugh Johnson

Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
2,648
Location
The Sultanate of Portugal
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.
 
OP
burtlancast

burtlancast

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
3,263
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.

:lol::lol:

Actually, there's a lot of truth in this statement.

But it does have it's useful bits: didn't Ray mention a big brain helps people live longer ?
 

sladerunner69

Member
Joined
May 24, 2013
Messages
3,307
Age
31
Location
Los Angeles
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.

True, but even with my IQ of 230 I am largely cogent of my existence and never entertain my rampant suicidal tendencies.... I am too intelligent for it. If everyone strives to have smarter babies it would equate to widespread progress and the embrace of modern ideals.
 

jaguar43

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2012
Messages
1,310
This comes from the transcribed interview Life Supporting Substances - It's Rain Making Time, 2011-07-04

Ray explains that animal studies back in the 1960’s and 70’s showed that sugar and progesterone are factors that increase brain growth development and learning ability.

The way to have precocious, prodigy babies seems thus to provide them with high glucose and high progesterone during pregnancy, and to limit polyunsaturated fats, which have exactly the opposite effects.

Associating Large body/head babies with intelligence is very deceiving. Ray Peat doesn't necessarily think its the most important factor in intelligence.

A few years ago a group of researchers in Scotland studying learning in apes did some experiments (involving opening boxes to get a piece of candy inside) that showed that chimpanzees learn in a variety of “flexibly adaptive” ways, and that 3 year old children being presented with a similar task most often did it in ways that appear to be less intelligent than the apes. They “suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due toa greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions.” (Horner and Whiten, 2005; Whiten, et al., 2004).

In my newsletter on puberty, I described some of the effects of foods and hormones on intelligence. Here, I want to consider the effects of culture on the way people learn and think. Culture, it seems, starts to make us stupid long before the metabolic problems appear.

Academic authoritarians, language, metaphor, animals, and science

I think Ray Peat said it best, "culture makes us stupid long before the metabolic problem appears". He has also said that spiders and other brainless animals are more intelligent than most biologist.
 

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
Associating Large body/head babies with intelligence is very deceiving. Ray Peat doesn't necessarily think its the most important factor in intelligence.

A few years ago a group of researchers in Scotland studying learning in apes did some experiments (involving opening boxes to get a piece of candy inside) that showed that chimpanzees learn in a variety of “flexibly adaptive” ways, and that 3 year old children being presented with a similar task most often did it in ways that appear to be less intelligent than the apes. They “suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due toa greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions.” (Horner and Whiten, 2005; Whiten, et al., 2004).

In my newsletter on puberty, I described some of the effects of foods and hormones on intelligence. Here, I want to consider the effects of culture on the way people learn and think. Culture, it seems, starts to make us stupid long before the metabolic problems appear.

Academic authoritarians, language, metaphor, animals, and science

I think Ray Peat said it best, "culture makes us stupid long before the metabolic problem appears". He has also said that spiders and other brainless animals are more intelligent than most biologist.

It's the ratio of brain mass to body mass that matters, not simply head size. However, in the absense of non-lethal or invasive ways to measure brain mass, head surface area to body surface area is not a bad surrogate.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2016
Messages
384
Location
NY
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.
Why do you make a gender distinction?

I 100% disagree, I think stupidity is dangerous.
 

Hugh Johnson

Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
2,648
Location
The Sultanate of Portugal
Why do you make a gender distinction?

I 100% disagree, I think stupidity is dangerous.
Intelligence causes more trouble to women. The hypothesis is that due to patriarchal constraints women have less opportunities to use their intellect and are more likely to end up in menial jobs. They also are afforded less authority due to their gender. Not my opinion btw, there are plenty of researchers looking into this stuff. Although, the soceity is changing really fast right now, so almost none of this research is likely to apply in the world two decades to the future.

Yeah, stupidity is dangerous, but in reality most people would rather jump to their deaths if everyone did, than survive alone.
 

xiaohua

Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2013
Messages
140
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.
LOL, can confirm. Source: female with high IQ. Not sure I'd trade it though
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
81
High intelligence is more trouble than it's worth. You want to have IQ only a bit higher than the general population, especially if you are a woman. High intelligence has little benefit but causes existential crises and social problems.

Yes . That is the experience of my daughter !
 
Last edited by a moderator:

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
Intelligence causes more trouble to women.
Women who act intelligent often upset men, and get targetted for it by a male-dominant society.
The more intelligence a large group of women can bring to bear on the situation, the better chance of making this male-dominance and targetting a thing of the past.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
81
Can you explain that ?
My other daughter had undiagnosed hypothyroidism towards the end of her pregnancy and her placenta tore. She haemorrhaged and the baby was starved of oxygen for a while so he is a little miracle ( walking now) But the low sugar, low Vit A in today's diet also PUFA may have been contributing factors??
 

bobbybobbob

Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2016
Messages
203
Women who act intelligent often upset men, and get targetted for it by a male-dominant society.
The more intelligence a large group of women can bring to bear on the situation, the better chance of making this male-dominance and targetting a thing of the past.

Women invariably insist on mating up in terms of intelligence and height and income and social status. Men don't. It's that simple.

A smart, tall woman with a "high status" job has a vanishingly small pool of men to pick from. Her male counter part has no such firm criteria and is perfectly happy to pair off with a hot and fun waitress, if it comes to that.
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
Women invariably insist on mating up in terms of intelligence and height and income and social status. Men don't. It's that simple.
This does not match my observation, although judging people's intelligence is pretty arbitrary.
I've heard that 90% of statistics are made up on the spot. Maybe this was one such. Or maybe you meant 'disproportionately'.

Income and social status tend to correlate at present in many countries and maybe height does for men too, but none of those three necessarily with intelligence, although some limited measures of particular kinds of intelligence tend to be rewarded by income and social status, and skills in some kinds of 'intelligence tests' are conferred culturally.

A smart, tall woman with a "high status" job has a vanishingly small pool of men to pick from. Her male counter part has no such firm criteria and is perfectly happy to pair off with a hot and fun waitress, if it comes to that.
I'll bet there are plenty of intelligent hot fun waitresses around.
Schooling is not all that closely rationed by intelligence. Children of wealthy families are more likely to have the resources to support more education for their offspring, and to teach them the skills to be able to make use of it.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom