“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
– Hippocrates
One aspect of understanding Food as Information (FAI) that fundamentally moves it beyond our current component-centric approach is the recognition that the environment, in myriad forms, both internal and external, affects a meal’s health outcomes. In simple terms, how we eat, beyond just what we consume, enters into the food health equation. Previous primate work, for example, has shown the effects of social isolation, including during mealtime, on immune function.
But what about humans?
Can the way we think, the way we approach a meal or problem, result in measurable physiologic differences? Is information causal? In approaching food as information, that belief is a fundamental tenet.
Now, a study published in Nature Medicine has found a neurophysiological link between thought and attitude and immune system function. While not specifically addressing mealtime, the study does provide evidence that with all other things being equal, our neurophysiologic state at the time of an event – in this study, it was vaccination – measurably affects physiological outcomes. In this experiment, individuals who formed positive expectations showed a stronger immune response to the hepatitis B vaccine.
- The study involved 85 healthy participants who underwent functional MRI (fMRI) monitoring.
- They were divided into three groups:
- an experimental group trained to activate the reward system with a focus on the ventral tegmental area (VTA) (34 people),
- an active control group trained to activate other brain regions unrelated to reward (34 people), and
- a control group that received no mental training (17 people).
- The mean age was approximately 25 years (51 females, 34 males).
- Immediately after the last training session/waiting period, all participants received a hepatitis B vaccine (HBV) vaccine to challenge their immune system, and blood samples were drawn twice before vaccination and twice after (14 and 28 days) to assess the development of HBV antibodies.
- The researchers used an fMRI-based neurofeedback technique. This allowed the study participants to learn to increase or decrease their brain activity and to voluntarily control it.
- During the sessions, participants were instructed to increase their VTA activity by engaging in positive thoughts about the future and cultivating optimistic expectations. They tested different mental strategies and immediately identified which approaches were most effective by monitoring their own functional MRI brain activity in real time.
- The results showed a clear association between brain activity and immunity. Participants who successfully activated the VTA produced higher levels of antibodies against hepatitis B weeks after vaccination.
- Individual capacity to engage the reward system had a measurably positive effect on immune response following vaccination.
The Caveat:
The research demonstrated that upregulating the VTA via repeated fMRI-NF training was associated with a stronger post-vaccination immune response in humans. There was a clear association between brain activity and immunity. Participants who successfully activated the VTA produced higher levels of antibodies against hepatitis B weeks after vaccination. Individual capacity to engage the reward system had a positive effect on immune response following vaccination.
As the authors note, their “findings suggest a top-down brain-immune regulation mechanism.” These findings had previously been demonstrated in other mammals. Importantly, these findings linked positive expectations to sustained VTA activity. Thus, as the researchers observe, “future clinical studies could elicit stronger downstream immune effects by encouraging participants to employ mental strategies that specifically evoke positive expectations.”
The study design was unique in that, as the researchers noted, it allowed participants to access a process that is usually invisible to us. Generally speaking, we are not consciously aware of particular activity in specific brain regions, let alone engage in techniques to modulate those regions.
Furthermore, because diet-related chronic disease pathophysiology involves chronic inflammation, our mental state during mealtimes has the potential to “harness the natural capacities of our mind and brain to heal our bodies.” This type of research suggests that emotions such as hope are not merely abstract add-ons, but information-based causal forces that measurably affect biological mechanisms. Outcomes are affected by how we communicate information and how we respond to it.
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