21 January 2003 - Diet and Behaviour at the UK Parliament

Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum

• Chairman: Lord Rea
• Joint Vice-Chairmen: Tony Baldry MP, Dr Ian Gibson MP & Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen
• Secretary: The Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
• Treasurer: Rev Martin Smyth MP

The meeting was addressed by two speakers who presented findings from their research into the effects of nutrition on behaviour

Bernard Gesch, Director, Natural Justice

Bernard Gesch is Director of the research charity Natural Justice and a Senior Research Scientist at the University Laboratory of Physiology, University of Oxford. He was formerly a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Surrey from where he conducted the HM Prison Service Nutritional Rehabilitation Project which empirically demonstrated that good nutrition reduces antisocial behaviour to a remarkable degree. He is currently collaborating with the Medical Research Council - Human Nutrition Research and the Institute of Psychiatry to replicate these findings and investigate which nutrients are most-effective and why. Bernard was sponsored by the Home Office to train as a Probation Officer and has been involved in initiatives that have been influential in the treatment of offenders since the early 1980s, including the development of diversion strategies and the pioneering use of nutrition as part of community sentences.

Dr Joseph Hibbeln, United States Public Health Service

Dr Hibbeln is an Officer of the United States Public Health Service and is Chief of the Outpatient Clinic, Laboratory of Membrane Biophysics and Biochemistry at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He will be presenting extensive new data linking dietary deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids from seafood to increased risks of severe depression during pregnancy and to increased risks of homicide mortality.