Sometime in the first half of the 17th Century, Jan Baptist van Helmont (January 12, 1580 – December 30, 1644) claimed that there was a link between emotions and the stomach! According to the noted chemist, physiologist and physician from Brussels, emotions do not arise in the heart, nor are they located in the brain, but take place in the organs of digestion. Helmont used to believe that the processes of emotion, perception and imagination begin in the stomach. His view seemingly echoes the latest research on social networks carried out by the scientists of Connecticut-based Yale University!

Yale University researchers, who conducted the noteworthy study on social contacts, found that the road to the mind could be traced in the stomach! It is commonly believed that friendships are based on mutual interests and passions. In other words, some sort of common ground, like similar hobbies, lifestyle or favourite foods, sparks a friendship. After examining some close friends, Yale researchers found that friends also have similar gut microbe ecosystems! The Nature journal published the study on November 20, 2024.

Researchers were trying to find out whether there was a connection between the social life and friends circle of a person and the gut microbiome. A microbiome is basically a community of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi, that live in or on a particular part of the body, like the skin or gastrointestinal tract. As a part of their study, researchers carried out a comprehensive examination of 18 isolated villages in Honduras, assessing the social connections and gut microbes of 1,787 adults, and inspecting 339,137 microbial strains. Surprisingly, they noticed that people within the same social networks, whether they live together or not, show unusual similarities in their microbiomes!

Francesco Beghini, the Co-lead author and a senior researcher at Human Nature Lab of Yale University, stressed: “We found substantial evidence of microbiome sharing happening among people who are not family and who do not live together, even after accounting for other factors like diet, water sources and medications.” He added: “In fact, microbiome sharing was the strongest predictor of people’s social relationships in the villages we studied, beyond characteristics, like wealth, religion or education.” In other words, close social relations or living in the same environment can spread germs from one person to another! If two persons spend time together at the same place, touch the same objects, shake hands or hug each other, then they exchange germs between them, explained Beghini. It shows how the microbiomes of a person are connected to others’, irrespective of their religious faith, wealth or education.

Meanwhile, the maximum transmission of germs occurs between husband and wife or between the members of the same family. According to the researchers, the entire process depends on how much time these people spend together. On the other hand, those who have few or no friends and live in small communities are less likely to share germs with others.

For his part, Co-lead author Jackson Pullman stated: “You have friend groups centred on things, like theatre or crew or being physics majors. Our study indicates that the people composing these groups may be connected in ways we never previously thought, through their microbiomes.”

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das