Eidetic Memory affected by Vegetarian Diet?

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Larisa - 02 Dec 2004 18:37 GMT

I am wondering if there are any resources out there about
vegetarianism and how it affects eidetic memory. I have an eidetic
memory for text. When I began a vegetarian diet (including milk
products and eggs), after a week I noticed I could not remember text
as well; after a month, I could not remember any text at all. I could
still retain the meaning of the text I read, and my "regular" memory
was unaffected - however, I could no longer recall certain passages
verbatim, as I could before. Supplementing the vegetarian diet with
iron and zinc had no effect. When I went to the doctor and had a
blood test done, it came up normal except for a slight calcium
deficiency. After I went back to eating meat, the eidetic memory came
back a few weeks later.

Does anyone have any idea on what could be causing this, or could
someone point me to a study or a book on this subject? I'm curious.

LM

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Steve Harris sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com - 02 Dec 2004 23:12 GMT

> I am wondering if there are any resources out there about
> vegetarianism and how it affects eidetic memory. I have an eidetic
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> LM

Interesting report. In theory, vegetarian diets, even vegan diets,
have everything the human brain needs (save for B12 in a vegan diet--
but that won't change over weeks; it takes years).

There are things the brain uses like taurine, carnitine and fatty
acids like arachadonate and DHA, which are present in high amounts in
meat, but need to be synthesized from precursors in vegetables (with
intermediate amounts in milk and eggs). Hypothesis: perhaps you're one
of those people especially bad at making those things, as cats are.
No, I don't know of any reports that such people actually exist. Just
keep eating that fish (at least).

SBH

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Larisa - 05 Dec 2004 07:01 GMT

> > I am wondering if there are any resources out there about
> > vegetarianism and how it affects eidetic memory. I have an eidetic
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> SBH

I'm tempted to do a more controlled experiment on myself and write it
up; I have never seen anything like that anywhere in the scientific
literature. I do, however, know that I have loved meat of all kinds
ever since I was a baby perhaps my body was telling me something,
even then. Is there such a thing as taurine in pill form? Or
carnitine?

The other thing that seems to rule out genetics is that both my
parents have become vegetarians about 3 months ago, and have had no
ill effects. However, they also do not have the same kind of eidetic
memory as I do. When I went to visit them, I ate the same diet as
they did, and felt my memory getting "foggy" again.

I've gone back to eating meat, incidentally - I kinda like my brain
the way it is. But as a biomedical engineer and science wannabe, I am
intrigued.

LM

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