Could having lots of friends give us a healthier gut?

Being surrounded by a good group of friends can have a huge impact on mental health and happiness.

But it may also lead to a healthier gut and better immune system, according to a new study.

Having ‘good’ bacteria in our digestive system is important for general health and can reduce the risk of certain diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes.

Now, researchers have found that being social could lead to more of the “good” gut bacteria and less of the tiny microbes than could potentially lead to disease.

A team from the University of Oxford collected a total of 50 uncontaminated stool samples from rhesus monkeys — a type of monkey — living on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico.

They measured each monkey’s social connection by calculating the amount of time each monkey spent grooming or being groomed, and the number of grooming partners.

The team analyzed the DNA of the stool samples to measure how healthy their gut bacteria were.

Results, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, revealed that those who had more social interactions had higher levels of the “good” gut bacteria.

The most social monkeys had less of the Streptococcus bacteria, which can cause diseases such as pneumonia in humans.

These animals also had more of a bacteria called Faecalibacterium, which is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and is associated with good health.

Co-author Dr Robin Dunbar, from the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford, said: ‘As our society increasingly replaces online interactions with real ones, these important research findings underscore the fact that as primates we live not only in a social world, but also a microbial.’

The authors suggest that when the monkeys groom each other, it allows for the transfer of tiny microbes.

Or it could be that monkeys with more friends are less stressed, which can also have an impact on the bacteria in our gut.

Lead author Dr Katerina Johnson said: ‘This study was on primates, which are naturally close relatives of humans and these were non-captive animals roaming free on an island.

“I’ve also previously shown in humans that people with larger social networks have a more diverse gut microbiome, and we know that a more diverse gut microbiome in general is associated with better gut health and health in general.”

“This pattern that we’re seeing here in monkeys, and also in humans, of this relationship between social interactions and gut health may be due in part to a direct effect of social interactions — we transmit microbes between us when we interact.”

“Obviously this can transmit nasty microbes, as we are all very aware of Covid now, but we also transmit a lot of harmless and beneficial bacteria.

“Our findings may also reflect an indirect effect, as we know that friendships are very good at buffering against stress and stress is known to negatively affect our gut microbial community.”