The experiments have been finished. Extra vitamins improve intelligence and prevent learning disabilities. Today, a very small minority of parents accepts the data and provides extra vitamins to their children. The vaste majority will not accept the evidence and continue to rely on food to supply the vitamin needs of their children.

The molecular structures of vitamins were discovered just around 100 years ago. Commercial production and distribution of vitamins took decades to put into place. I believe it is fair to say, as a practical matter, that parents have only been empowered to separately control the food and vitamin intake of their children for the past 40 years. This is not much time in the course of human history.

Cultural norms around food are strong. Getting parents to embrace vitamin supplements for children is not going to be easy. Doctors are parents and grandparents too. The concept that food does not contain optimal quantities of vitamins make people uncomfortable. This concept has to be threatening to the large majority of adults that grew up eating only food. So – it should not be surprising that the medical establishment is highly resistant to the data. We choose doctors that support our own beliefs.

I have read most of the available scientific data concerning vitamins, intelligence, and learning disabilities. The data decisively supports the minority view that extra vitamins prevent learning disabilities and improve intelligence. Optimizing the vitamin intake of American children will raise the average IQ by at least 5 points and by no more than 20 points.

Raising IQ and preventing learning disabilities with extra vitamins is alot less appealing if it comes at the cost of common, uncomfortable vitamin side effects. Few parents will intentionally cause their children to experience discomfort. All vitamins must be used with care. I believe that most of the gains can be achieved using very safe doses of vitamins that rarely cause discomfort and never cause extreme discomfort. Doses of vitamins that are, in fact, safer than food. No child grows up without experiencing the discomfort of a food-born illness and/or discomforts from eating too much of a food that “disagrees” with them.

The key vitamins are the five (and the only five) that have been used to eliminate pandemic deficiency diseases. These are vitamin A, vitamin B1 (thiamin), vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin C, and vitamin D. Safe doses are provided here.

Parents of children with Down’s Syndrome are out front on this issue. 5 to 20 IQ points can bring some of these children to arguably within the range of normal. With so much to gain, some parents of children with Down’s syndrome are giving high doses of vitamins a try. Although it’s not very scientific, there are some impressively high functioning kids with Down’s syndrome that were brought up on very high doses of vitamins. Here’s just one link. It’s hard to explain the successes without crediting the vitamins and the scientific reports of the physicians who developed these vitamin protocols.

Smarter children benefit everyone. There is much to gain (5 to 20 IQ points), and almost nothing to lose by giving the vitamins a try.