Violence over the Millennia in Central America: Hypotheses about Nutritional Causes

As the news recently has erupted with stories about the extreme violence in Central America--El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and southern Mexico--I think possible nutrition-related correlations with violence deserve scrutiny. In fact, that is the most productive avenue of research and advocacy I can imagine for those who would like to reduce violence there, for there are only three explanations for the horrific intentional homicide rates in that region of the world: 1) government, 2) culture, 3) genetics and/or nutritional interactions with genetics.

The governments of those countries are different and have varied widely over the past century, but the murders just keep happening. If we look back further at the great Mayan civilizations, despite their high intelligence and accomplishments, they kept devolving due to killing each other. So I don't think government changes are the answer.

Culture? No, we see from the ethnic enclaves of Central Americans in the USA that they do not reproduce the extreme homicide rates of their homelands.

Genetics and/or nutritional interactions with genetics....now that I'm willing to blame. Not just genetics, of course, for as noted before, ethnic enclaves of Central Americans in the USA do not reproduce the extreme homicide rates of their homelands. So I think nutrition, including the way it interacts with genetics, is a significant, overlooked factor in Central American violence. Moreover, I think that poverty-caused restrictions on diet enhance the influence of nutritional differences as a factor in violence.