The Shrinking Brain

Since 1950, there has been a steady increase in mental ill-health across the population. At the same time, there has been a similar steady decline in IQ. There is strong evidence of 'dumbing down' right across society. If this is allowed to continue, it will be the greatest threat to the sustainability of the human race, even greater than the more visible threat of climate change. The Global Mental Health Crisis is a direct result of the fact that, over time, the actual size of our brains is getting smaller. This is a historical fact, but it is entirely reversible with better brain nutrition. This has now reached crisis proportions.
In 2023, the European Brain Council recognised that "Brain Health conditions have become a global health emergency". Back in 1972, Graham Rose wrote in the Sunday Times, "Unless action is taken to care for the nutrition of the brain, we will become a race of morons!'
Authors Michael A Crawford and David E Marsh have both devoted their lives to this vital area of research. This book is their legacy. In painstaking detail, they make the case for reversing the Global Mental Health Crisis. With greater awareness of the problem, its cause, and the solution required to make a change, their message could not be clearer. By reading this book, you will not be able to say, "We didn't realise."
This book may contain complex research and the results of detailed research, but the message is simple and so is the action we all need to take.
We also explain the role of the environment in the evolution of the brain, leading to early Homo sapiens with a brain capacity of over 1,600cc, and explain why it is now only 1,366 cc and mental ill-health is escalating. The concepts in this book have been fifty-one years in the making. They can't wait any longer. There is no more time.
Presented with these incontrovertible facts, it does not need a rocket scientist to work out what will happen if these dumbing-down trends continue! Fortunately, solutions are available which will lead to brighter and healthier children of the future.

Absolutely—here’s a clean, copy-ready version of the review for Amazon, plus a literal transcription in case you need it exactly as it appears on the scroll.

It is with immense admiration that I commend this remarkable work. Shrinking Brain, authored by my distinguished colleague of international repute, represents not merely years of research but a lifetime of thoughtful inquiry into one of the gravest challenges of our age—the impact of malnutrition on the human brain and mind.

In its pages the reader will encounter a penetrating exploration of how maternal and infant malnutrition corrodes the very foundations of human development—causing shrinking of the brain, mental deficiency, learning disorders, and lasting psychiatric consequences.

The prose is at once scientific and humane, weaving rigorous evidence with deep compassion. This is not a mere academic exercise; it is a clarion call to action. Shrinking Brain deserves to be translated into Arabic and Urdu, so that its message can guide physicians, families, and policy makers in all societies where malnutrition remains a silent epidemic.

May this work awaken conscience, inspire reform, and safeguard the most sacred trust of all—the developing mind of the child.

— Prof. Dr. Ahmed Ali-Khan
Vice-Chancellor, Tony Buzan Academy UK
Visiting Professor of Psychiatry
Distinguished Son of Psychiatry — Brain of the Year Award (House of Lords)
Invited Scholar to Buckingham Palace Diversity Lunch by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to assist in designing roadmaps to address inequalities

Michael A Crawford PhD, FRSB, FRCPath

Michael Crawford was born in Edinburgh and did national service with RCAF Winnipeg and RAF Oldenburg.  In 1965 he obtained a doctorate at the Royal Post Graduate Medical School, Hammersmith, then established biochemical teaching at the Makerere College, Medical School in Kampala, Uganda. The UK had built a new teaching hospital in Mulago as a goodbye present for independence in 1962. With Sandy Rankin, he helped create the Muhimbili Medical School in Dar-es-Salam in 1963, returning to London in 1965. The experience in East Africa taught him the power of nutrition in health and non-communicable diseases which were in total contrast to those in the UK. At the Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine, he and Andrew Sinclair published the first evidence of the role of DHA and arachidonic acid in the evolution of the brain in 1971. This was followed by the first evidence of an omega 3 deficiency causing severe behavioural disorders in a primate in 1973. He then turned his attention to maternal nutrition during pregnancy, when most of the human brain cells divide. On retiring in 2010 he was invited to work at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital campus of Imperial College, London, as a visiting professor. The prime interest of the team under Professor Mark Johnson, head of obstetrics and gynaecology, is in preventing preterm birth and the neurodevelopmental disorders which handicap a child for life. He has won many international awards and was elected as a Freeman of the City of London in 2017. web: www.imperial.ac.uk/people/michael.crawford 

David E Marsh Dip Agric  

David trained initially in agriculture (Shuttleworth College, Bedfordshire) with ten years experience farming in Bedfordshire. In the late 1970s and early 1980s David interviewed many medical doctors and scientists who had unusual ideas regarding the noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and began writing the storyboard for a television series… thus meeting Michael Crawford in 1981 whilst he was director of Nutritional Biochemistry at the Nuffield Foundation Laboratories at London Zoo, (ZSL)’ 

David then moved to human nutrition and co-authored The Driving Force; Food in Evolution & the Future (1989) – later Nutrition and Evolution (1995), with Professor Michael Crawford (Inst. Brain Chem. & Human Nutrition, Imperial College London). He has since written broadly (for Resurgence, Positive Health, Positive Health Online, Healthy Eating, Nutrition and Health amongst other publications) about nutrition, evolution, environment and integrated medicine, including a series in the Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine on energy or vibrational medicine. This book is of particular interest to the author as it brings his special interests in nutrition and food production together in full circle. The Origins of Diversity: Darwin’s Conditions and Epigenetic Variations, (Nutrition & Health 2008) won him the presitigious Cleave Award from the McCarrison Society for Nutrition and Health in 2016. 

David edited the McCarrison Society for Nutrition and Health Newsletter, together with many and various articles with it, and for the society’s Journal Nutrition & Health; (see www. mccarrison.com). He lectures very occasionally on the history of evolution theories. David can be reached at davidmarsh.dip.ag@gmail.com www.davidmarsh.org.uk