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David Smith
Network of Researchers on the Chemical Emergence of Life, UK
Keynote: Psychiatry Ment. Health Res
Issues related to poor mental health have been rising to the fore in recent years, although they are part of a much larger range of non- communicable diseases relating both to the gain of weight and to problems with the immune system. Sadly, attempts to connect these very different sets of disorders in any causative fashion are unsatisfactory. However, while the gut and the brain have been associated in several well-known phrases, such as gut feeling, for example, it is only recently that the term microbiotagut- brain axis has been coined. Significantly, a recent critique by Harald Brüssow has pointed to the logical flaws in this “microbiota hypothesis”: the lack of any ecological and evolutionary rationale, for example, or the absence of a set of modified Koch’s postulates to connect specific microbes to disease states. Contemporaneous with Brüssow’s arguments, we published our own novel approach to the microbiome: as a single “guest entity” having a defined role with respect to its vertebrate host. In our view, the possession of a malfunctioning microbiome from birth increases the likelihood for the future development of the range of diseases mentioned above. Indeed, these conditions often come together in a single “package”: for example, coeliac disease contains both immune and, perhaps surprisingly, mental health components, along with disturbance of nutrition. Once the relationship of the microbiota-immune system with the gut-brain axis is understood, it becomes possible to map out potential origins of the placebo effect, a long-standing medical mystery. Gratifyingly, we can begin to trace a logical pathway in which the microbiome/host complex (holobiont) has evolved, and we now have an indication of the mechanism of its degradation. We are currently exploring the possibility that non-communicable diseases can be prevented in future generations by appropriate microbial inoculation at birth.
David Smith graduated in chemistry in 1979, continuing with a PhD and subsequent employment in the pharmaceutical industry in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. On retirement in 2013, he was able to pursue the vexing question of why he began to put on excessive weight in middle age. At this point, the concept of the microbiota-gut- brain axis was beginning to receive significant attention but, unfortunately, its interaction with the human body was not at all clear. By 2018, he was beginning to grasp the outlines of an answer, explaining not only his weight gain but also his hay fever and, indeed, his autism. In conjunction with Dr Sohan Jheeta, the founder of NoRCEL (the Network of Researchers on the Chemical Emergence of Life), he began a series of peer-reviewed articles forming the basis of this presentation.
