HEALTH: Can vitamins, omega fats improve behavior? Study links diet to mental health

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Can vitamins, omega fats improve behavior? Study links diet to mental health

When your parents told you to take your vitamins, they wanted you to

grow up big and strong. They weren't thinking it might keep you out of

trouble.

But listen to this: In a recent study from England, inmates given daily

vitamins, minerals and omega fatty acids drastically reduced their bad

behavior. Compared to inmates who didn't get the nutritional

supplements, they didn't fight as often, break as many rules, mouth off

or act out as much.

The study, done at an Aylesbury juvenile jail by Oxford University

physiology researcher Bernard Gesch, is far from conclusive. But it

suggests that the connection between what we eat and how we behave goes

much deeper than " too much sugar makes my kids crazy. "

The logical extension of its findings could reach far beyond prison

walls. If good nutrition can keep an inmate in line, think what it could

do for road rage and violent crime.

" This data is very interesting, although it raises as many questions as

it answers, " says Gilligan, an expert on violence at New York

University and consultant to the San Francisco jail's anti-violence

education program.

He adds that the Gesch study, along with a couple of other recent

studies of omega 3 fatty acids' effects on mental illness, " at least

suggest the possibility that ordinary foodstuffs like fatty fish may

decrease impulsive behavior -- which includes a variety of antisocial

behaviors. "

The study isn't the first to connect nutrition and behavior. Small

studies have shown that vitamin supplements may raise kids' grades and

improve their behavior at school. But Gilligan says the protocol for the

new studies is far more rigorous.

Most nutrition research looks at the body. We all know how saturated

fats strangle our hearts, and studiously track the ways substances like

lycopene in tomatoes might prevent cancer. But when it comes to behavior

and mental health, the role of nutrition in general and fatty acids in

particular is just emerging.

Gesch, a former probation officer, runs a nonprofit called Natural

Justice, which researches the causes of criminal behavior.

His study involved 231 juvenile offenders. Half got a daily multivitamin

and four pills containing essential fatty acids. The other half got five

pills containing only vegetable oil. Their diets and behavior were

monitored both before and during the study, which ranged from weeks up

to 9 months.

Results appeared in the British Journal of Psychiatry last year.

Antisocial incidents -- everything from assault and hostage taking to

insolence and rule- breaking -- dropped at least one-third among

prisoners who got the supplements, but insignificantly among the ones

taking the placebo.

Gesch says he's not saying nutrition is the only cause of antisocial

behavior, but that the results " could not be explained by ethnic or

social factors. "

He cautions that the results need to be replicated -- and then more

studies done to explain them. But they show the potential for reducing

violence in prisons, and in the community, he says. His study stirred up

enough interest that Gesch will present his work at the American

Psychiatric Association's annual conference in San Francisco in May.

The study drew the interest of Dr. ph Hibbeln, a researcher on

nutrition and behavior at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse

and Alcoholism. For Hibbeln, who has labored in relative obscurity for

15 years on the effects of omega fatty acids on humans, Gesch's study is

like gold.

The human brain is made up largely of fat, Hibbeln says. And his theory

is that American brains have changed over the last century as Americans

have eaten less seafood and vastly more soybean oil, the ubiquitous

" vegetable oil " that's in most processed foods.

The shift means Americans now consume far more omega 6 fatty acids

(present in the oil) than omega 3s (present in seafood) -- and the two

affect the brain very differently, Hibbeln says.

Omega 6 fats compete with omega 3s, and omega 3s are losing the battle

in the American diet, Hibbeln said. And studies on animal and human

brains have shown that without enough omega 3s, serotonin levels

plummet. Low serotonin can lead to depression and impulsive behavior,

and Hibbeln is convinced that our dietary changes are one reason

American levels of depression and violence have risen.

Gesch's study and new ones underway build on ongoing work by California

State University at Turlock researcher Schoenthaler, who also

has run tests on both offenders and schoolchildren that suggest

improving nutrition affects behavior. In some of the new studies just

coming out, omega 3 supplements helped reverse depression and bipolar

disorder.

Gesch says his study doesn't prove anything about why the inmates who

got supplements acted better -- and much more research is needed.

Gilligan cautions against thinking that finding one biological key to

bad behavior is the answer to violence, which has deeply complicated

social, psychological and cultural causes.

And, he says, making sweeping policy changes would be wrong until more

is known. But at the same time, adding a nutritional component to RSVP,

the San Francisco jail's successful anti-violence program, might make sense.

" It's hard to see where it would do any harm, " he says.

In California, however, the new research is unlikely to affect what

prisoners are fed, let alone get them daily vitamins. State law says

prisoners' meals must meet government nutrition guidelines, but in fact

the regulations only address protein and a couple of the major vitamins

like C and A.

In San Francisco jails, inmates get 2,900 calories a day, at 99 cents

per meal -- which means a lot of starch.

Jan Wyatt-Lucha, food director in the Marin County Jail and consultant

to the state Board of Corrections, says inmates' minimum diets are

updated every few years. But vitamin supplements?

" They are not going to do it because it costs too much, " she says.

Money aside, improving the diet of a captive population is one thing.

People in jail already eat better than a lot of people on the street,

Wyatt- Lucha says.

" Getting the nutrients into people is matter for social policy, " says Gesch.

And parents.

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Carol Ness is a Chronicle staff writer. E-mail her at

cness@....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/01/15/FD182842.DTL

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