The effect of dietary supplementation on aggressive behaviour in Australian adult male prisoners: A feasibility and pilot study for a randomised, double blind placebo controlled trial
In this 2020 randomized controlled trial, adult male prisoners were randomly given either omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFA) and multivitamin supplements or a placebo to determine the effect of nutritional supplements on aggressive behavior. While 136 adult males signed up for the 16-week trial, 60% stayed for the experiment. The measures of aggressive behavior [institutional records of misconduct (IRM), the Inmate Behaviour Observation Scale (IBOS)] were collected for all of the participants, while 82-97% completed the questionnaires (also to examine aggressiveness) and 93% of blood samples (to inspect erythrocyte n-3 LCPUFA levels) were successfully collected. Prisoners were 4.3 times more likely to have an IBOS over 2 if they are below the 6% cut off on the omega-3 index. But Cortie et al. could not identify any significant differences in outcomes between the supplement group and the placebo group, with both groups improving overall across all measures. A greater sample size of 600 subjects was suggested by a power calculation, to detect the impact of dietary supplementation on aggressive behavior. [NPID: violence, omega-3s, polyunsaturated fatty acids, multivitamin, prison, prisoners]
Year: 2020
