It is hard to accept that something as ubiquitous as LPS may have such profound effects on our social behavior, but the findings are the latest in a very long line of research demonstrating that chronic inflammation (which LPS is “great” at inducing) result in social withdrawal and lack of empathy on behalf of the individual experiencing chronic inflammation. Since LPS is derived almost entirely from bacteria in the gut, and this process is controlled almost entirely by diet, the findings of the study suggest once again that “we are what we eat”, at least when it comes to personality and (social) behavior. Thus, one should take great care to avoid consumption of LPS-inducing diets, such as the ones containing high-fat/low-carb, resistant starch, PUFA, food additives that cause gut irritation, excessive alcohol consumption, etc. Even in the presence of such LPS-inducing diets, it may be feasible to mitigate the negative effects of such diets by simply administering OTC anti-inflammatory/anti-endotoxin substances such as charcoal, niacinamide, aspirin, vitamin D, glycine/gelatin, and insoluble-fiber-rich foods such as carrots, turnips, parsnip, rutabagas, etc.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2024.03.032
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-infections-social-empathy.html
“…Experimentally, the various facets of sickness behavior can be induced by the administration of bacterial endotoxin, in short LPS for lipopolysaccharide. The researchers from Bochum and Essen made use of this mechanism. They administered a low dose of LPS or—as a placebo—an injection with physiological saline to 52 voluntary female participants. The women were then asked to rate various social interactions. They were shown pictures of women who were either in somatic or psychological pain or in an emotionally neutral interaction with a male counterpart. “The results surprised us,” explains first author Vera Flasbeck from the LWL-University Hospital Bochum. “While the empathy for somatic pain was largely the same in the LPS and placebo group, there was a significant reduction in empathy for psychological pain in the test subjects exposed to LPS.” In the study, acute inflammation thus led to a reduction in people’s empathy for the psychological pain of others.”
“…”We assume that the reduced empathy serves to save energy in terms of social engagement in periods of illness,” explains Prof. Dr. Martin Brüne from the LWL-University Hospital Bochum, who supervised the study together with Professors Manfred Schedlowski and Harald Engler from the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Duisburg-Essen. “The results of the study indicate that inflammation—as in the case of physical infections, for instance—affects both our physical health and our interpersonal relationships.”
