DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: How ‘bad’ gut bacteria could make you mean and aggressive

You are what you eat is far from a new idea. But would you be surprised to know that there is a link between our diet and how aggressive we are? And that supplementing prisoners’ diets with vitamins and minerals has been shown to reduce violence and bad behavior?

The idea that a poor diet can make people more aggressive is not strictly new either.

In the 1940s, a maverick scientist named Dr. Hugh Sinclair (who was one of the first people to demonstrate the health benefits of eating oily fish) urged the wartime British government to give children liver oil. of cod and orange juice for free, arguing that, among other things, a poor diet can lead to antisocial behavior.

I also remember reading a book in the 1970s called Nutrition And Your Mind by the American psychologist Dr. George Watson, where he argued that if you can get people to eat more foods rich in fiber and nutrients and more “good” bacteria ( in the form of yogurt), this will improve not only your intestinal health but also your behavior.

In the 1970s people didn’t know much about gut bacteria, so he was clearly ahead of his time.

These claims – that people’s behavior could be improved by changing their diet – were largely ignored until researchers at the University of Oxford decided, in 1998, to carry out a nutrition study in a nearby prison.

At that time, prisoners were fed a cheap, starchy diet, consisting mainly of cereals, white bread and ultra-processed foods, such as mass-produced meat pies. (According to a friend of mine who works in a prison, little has changed in prison restoration).

For the study, Oxford researchers randomly assigned 231 male prisoners to take a pill containing vitamins, minerals and omega-3s (a fatty acid obtained primarily by consuming oily fish) or a placebo.

Neither group knew what they were taking and both groups took their pills every day for just over four months.

During this time, investigators tracked prisoners’ behavior through “Governor’s reports,” which are records of any acts involving intimidation or violence.

At the end of the study, which was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2002, the researchers found that there had been a notable 37 percent reduction in reports of violence in the group that received the supplements, while there were no significant changes in the behavior of the prisoners who took the placebo.

Later, in 2021, California State University (USA) carried out a similar study with 450 young delinquents, who were administered a vitamin and mineral supplement, with added omega 3; This led to a 39 percent reduction in violent attacks against staff and other prisoners.

The researchers noted that since committing violent actions leads to more time in prison, as well as higher levels of sick leave and more burnout among prison staff, giving supplements to prisoners would be a cost-effective way to not only reduce levels of aggression in prisons. prisons, but also save money (according to the Ministry of Justice, housing a single prisoner costs more than £47,000 a year, so spending a small amount on improving their nutrition seems like a good investment to me).

And, of course, it’s not just about the prisoners. A 2016 study by the University of Pittsburgh with aggressive children between 11 and 12 years old showed that three months of taking supplements containing vitamins, minerals and omega 3 led to a significant decrease in aggressive behavior. Unfortunately, when the children stopped taking the supplements, the bad behavior returned. So why does taking supplements have this effect?

Well, anyone who follows a diet based primarily on junk food is almost certainly deficient in key nutrients, and we know from numerous studies that getting an adequate supply of the right vitamins and minerals, throughout life, is essential for health. proper functioning of the brain. and central nervous system.

And that, in turn, can have a big effect on impulse control, where you can control your feelings of anger and aggression.

There is also the impact that a poor diet has on the gut microbiome – the microbes that live in our gut and influence our health in many different ways.

In a recent study with mice, which has not yet been published, scientists at Bar-Ilan University in Israel showed that they could make mice more or less aggressive simply by manipulating their microbiome. The less diverse their microbiome was and the more “bad” bugs they harbored, the more aggressively the mice behaved.

It’s not clear why, but it could be because bad bugs produce chemicals that cause inflammation, and those chemicals can travel to the brain through the blood supply.

On the other hand, if you have lots of “good” microbes in your gut, they help produce feel-good hormones like dopamine.

On top of that, the scientists showed that changing the mice’s microbiome led to the activation or deactivation of aggression-related genes in their brains.

I’m not sure this means we can say “it wasn’t my fault, my gut bacteria made me do it,” but there seems little doubt that taking care of your gut bacteria could help keep mood levels stable.

You know the drill: Eat a healthy Mediterranean-style diet with plenty of vegetables, nuts, and oily fish, and include fermented foods like sauerkraut and yogurt.

It may seem like a long time ago, but when you were on the beach last summer enjoying the sun, what was actually happening is that your body was busy producing melanin, a chemical that protects our skin against the sun’s ultraviolet light. Now, researchers at Northwestern University have developed a cream containing a synthetic version of melanin, which not only protects the skin against sun damage, but also heals skin already damaged by the sun or chemical burns.

The hope is that in the future it can be used in sun creams and in patients about to undergo radiotherapy.

The future of donor patients?

I have long been fascinated by the variety of things that surgeons can transplant: I have filmed people undergoing kidney transplants, heart transplants, lung transplants, and even a hand transplant.

The latter was particularly strange because the donated arm, which was grafted to a man, actually came from a woman; and since it was a different size, it looked out of place. But the main thing is that it worked.

So I was thrilled to read in the Mail that Aaron James, an American veteran, had recently received the world’s first complete eye transplant, along with a partial face transplant, after surviving a 7,200-volt electric shock.

The main drawback of transplants is that you usually have to take immunosuppressive medications for life, which have significant side effects. So much so that one patient who received an arm transplant stopped taking the medications after three years and lost his arm.

But all this can change: in a recent study at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, patients about to undergo a liver transplant were infused with donor dendritic cells. Dendritic cells roam the body, identifying anything they consider “foreign” and signaling it to the immune system for destruction.

But adding dendritic cells before the liver transplant “taught” the recipient’s immune system to tolerate the new organ, so immunosuppressive drugs were not needed.

If other trials are successful, this could revolutionize transplants.

Embrace the cold to live longer

How old are you really? Not how many birthdays have you had, but deep down, on a cellular level?

As part of a recent series I did on super-ageing (people 70 and older who look and act decades younger), I went to the Clock Foundation in California, where they are doing cutting-edge research on longevity.

They have developed a biological age test, based on work from the University of California, Los Angeles, that measures certain chemical changes in DNA that occur over time. The test is also known as the ‘Death Clock’, because it is a much better predictor of how much time you have left than the number of candles on your birthday cake. To my relief, the test showed that although I am 66 years old, my biological age is only 61.

Being biologically younger than your age can make a difference: New research published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry found that if your biological age is five years older than your actual age, you have a 40 percent higher risk of developing dementia or a blow.

But you can reduce your biological age. Studies suggest that getting more exercise, getting enough sleep, and having a healthy microbiome help, as does mild hypothermia (i.e., being cold). That’s a good thing heading into the cold months ahead.