The Doctor Weighs In

By Dov Michaeli MD, Ph.D

I must admit that when I read about Prof. Bernard Gesch’s experiment on the relation between nutrition and violence, I had a mental reaction that probably approximated something like an intellectual sneer.

Bernard Gesch is a psychologist and an Oxford University professor, an impressive credential.Bernard Gesch. Senior Research Scientist His study was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial, the gold standard in biological and clinical research. So what’s there not to like? I would say right off: a deep suspicion of nutritional claims, most of them either products of junk science, or no pretense of science at all –just claims.

Polmont Prison

The Experiment

In 2002 Gesh and colleagues published a report in the July issue of British Journal of Psychiatry about an experiment conducted in a prison in Aylesbury, England. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized experiment, Gesch et al. recruited 231 young adult prisoners, assigning half to receive dietary supplements and the other half to receive a placebo. The placebo and active-treatment groups were matched according to their number of disciplinary incidents and their progress through the prison system. There were no significant differences between the two groups in IQ, verbal ability, anger, anxiety, or depression.

Subjects remained on the supplements, which contained vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, for an average of 142 days. Compared to the placebo group, the researchers report, prisoners taking the active supplements committed an average of 26.3 percent fewer offenses. Compared to baseline rates, there was a 35.1 percent reduction in offenses in the supplemented group. "The greatest reduction occurred for the most serious incidents including violence," the researchers note, with a 37 percent drop seen in such incidents. No side effects were seen in subjects taking the supplements.

This is truly impressive! And believable. The methodology of the study is beyond reproach, the statistical analysis is persuasive. And the societal implications are profound.

The September 25 2009 issue of Science reports that a much larger and more detailed study is now under way in one of the most violent prison in the U.K (Polmont, Scotland). The 3-year trial, which started this spring, includes blood chemistry analysis and a battery of computer-based behavioral and cognitive tests designed to address the question that the earlier study could not: If a balanced diet does stem violence, how exactly does it do so?

Other studies have shown a connection between diet and violence, the latest one in the Dutch prison system. Similar findings were reported by Richard Carlton et al. (Alternative Therapies, Vol. 6, No. 3, May 2000, pp. 85-91.) who found that supplements improved mood, behavior, and school performance in learning disabled children. And to close the loop: several studies have shown a connection between learning disabilities and violent behavior.

What can be done right now?

So what are we waiting for? Here is an inexpensive and scientifically- based intervention that promises to deal with a scourge afflicting our society. Anybody who watched the clip of the young student beaten to death by violent gang members on the streets of Chicago while onlookers did not interfere (and haven’t come forward to give evidence) cannot escape but wonder: why?! And why not try something as inexpensive and as promising as dietary supplements in our prisons and schools?

Part of the answer, criminologists and researchers say, is political: we have an ethos of “get tough” on prisoners. I can hear the hue and cry in certain circles that we are coddling criminals.

Of course this is not a panacea. Of course there are deep and complex causes of violence in America. But if there is a real chance of mitigating the problem, if we could save even a few lives –why not try it now?