Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

Why Posttraumatic Stress Could Make Women More Susceptible To Food Addiction

Previous studies have found that people with PTSD are at increased risk for obesity, and the new study provides one explanation for that link: People with PTSD may use eating to cope with psychological distress, the researchers said.
"Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that observed links between PTSD and obesity might be partly explained by a tendency to use food to self-medicate traumatic stress symptoms," the researchers, from the University of Minnesota, wrote in the Sept. 17 issue of the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Ummm. No.  CDNIC.  (correlation does not imply causation.) Neither one of these causes the other.
This is the expected behavior of someone with chronic infectious illness.   Infection causes hyperinsulinemia and an increased stress response.  This manifests as anxiety and weight gain. 

HeadDeskHeadDeskHeadDesk

PTSD, respiratory illness: A signature long-term problem of 9/11 responders

Dia de los Muertos

Honor fallen brethren of suicides, too

Since 2001, the number of suicides among active duty troops has more than doubled. In the Army alone, suicides have tripled. In fact, suicide has become the second most common cause of death in the military.

Expected Behavior

PTSD symptoms common after an ICU stay

Risk factors for the occurrence of PTSD symptoms included younger age, use of benzodiazepines and/or mechanical ventilation during the ICU stay, and post-ICU memories of frightening ICU experiences. In some studies of European ICU patients, keeping an ICU diary significantly reduced the occurrence of PTSD symptoms.
Importantly, 3 of 3 studies demonstrated that more PTSD symptoms were associated with worse health-related quality of life.

Yes, well people in ICU are pretty sick or broken.
Mechanical ventilation often leaves residual pneumonia, which is known to cause lasting health effects.
Most of those people already have bacteremia and sepsis when thy came in, if they didn't get it from all the surgeries and catheters whle they were there.
And vivid memories are an indication of increased stress hormones due to systemic immune response.

It has nothing to do with the frightening emotional experience of the hospital stay.
It's because those people are still sick afterwards...
Next?

Under your nose

Study in mice raises question: Could PTSD involve immune response to stress?

Which raises the more obvious question, could it involve an immune response to infection?

Pop Quiz

Talk therapy may reverse biological changes in PTSD patients

The researchers, led by Dr. Szabolcs Kéri at the National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictions and University of Szeged in Hungary, recruited 39 individuals diagnosed with PTSD to participate in the study. For a comparison group, they also included 31 individuals who had been exposed to trauma, but who did not develop PTSD. The individuals with PTSD then received 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy, whereas the non-PTSD group received no therapy.

At the follow-up appointment 12 weeks later, the PTSD patients showed higher expression of FKBP5 and increased hippocampal volume. More importantly, these changes were directly associated with clinical improvement among the patients. The increased FKBP5 expression, and to a lesser degree the increased hippocampal volume, actually predicted improvement in their PTSD symptoms.

Please explain the Huge Glaring Error in the experimental design.
Extra credit:  describe a reality based mechanism for their results.

Good Grief

PTSD raises risk for obesity in women

Women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) gain weight more rapidly and are more likely to be overweight or obese than women without the disorder, find researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Harvard School of Public Health. It is the first study to look at the relationship between PTSD and obesity over time.
...
 "The good news from the study is that it appears that when PTSD symptoms abate, risk of becoming overweight or obese is also significantly reduced,"
...
Symptoms of PTSD rather than the trauma itself seemed to be behind the weight gain. "We looked at the women who developed PTSD and compared them to women who experienced trauma but did not develop PTSD. On the whole, before their symptoms emerged, the rate of change in BMI was the same as the women who never experienced trauma or did experience trauma but never developed symptoms," says Dr. Kubzansky.

All of this points to an ILLNESS.   If you're sick you get fat.   If you're not you lose weight.   And people who have trauma but aren't SICK don't get the symptoms.

Anxiety, depression, obsession and weight gain are all symptoms of the same damn infection.

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Military And Veteran Suicides Rise Despite Aggressive Prevention Efforts  

Nightmare Scenario

Sleep Mechanism Identified That Plays Role in Emotional Memory

Sleep researchers from University of California campuses in Riverside and San Diego have identified the sleep mechanism that enables the brain to consolidate emotional memory and found that a popular prescription sleep aid (Ambien) heightens the recollection of and response to negative memories.

"I was surprised by the specificity of the results, that the emotional memory improvement was specifically for the negative and high-arousal memories, and the ramifications of these results for people with anxiety disorders and PTSD," Mednick said. "These are people who already have heightened memory for negative and high-arousal memories. Sleep drugs might be improving their memories for things they don't want to remember."

The U.S. Air Force uses zolpidem (Ambien) as one of the prescribed "no-go pills" to help flight crews calm down after taking stimulants to stay awake during long missions, the researchers noted in the study.

Fascinating.   A mechanism that, via selective memory, produces a bad attitude.  Ironically, that makes me really happy.

Explains a lot. 

As I was saying

Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation May Aid in PTSD

In the 8-week open-label outpatient trial, 12 adults with severe and long-standing PTSD and depression showed a significant reduction in the anxiety symptoms of PTSD, as measured by the PTSD Patient Checklist, as well as symptoms of depression, as measured by the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology.
"We think that it works by sending signals in through the trigeminal nerve into the brain stem," lead author Ian A. Cook, MD.

Yes, well you're wrong.
Those people's trigeminal nerves are infected and causing their symptoms.  Somehow your treatment has ameliorated that problem.
You have tripped over the answer and still can't see it.
Please refer to my previous post for a clue.

Self Serving Science

The War on Sleep

On the battlefield of the future, there is no sleep but death. 

And they wonder why rates of mental illness are skyrocketing.
Support our troops indeed.

Quote of the Day

"I wanted the pain to stop."

Sgt. John Russell, who killed five of his fellow soldiers at a mental health clinic in Iraq.

Epidemiology 101

New Study Demands Zero-Tolerance for Military Sexual Assault

The study focuses on what these traumas mean for female veteran’s health: as noted, it concludes that women who have suffered a sexual assault in the military are nine times more likely to develop PTSD than female veterans with no history of sexual abuse. Female victims are also at much greater risk for a wide variety of other problems upon return: anxiety, depression, substance abuse and family troubles.
These results explicitly control for other factors that lead to PTSD. Contrary to many conservative talking points when Obama lifted the restriction on women in combat, the research cited in this study found that women handle combat-related stress just as well as men—military sexual trauma is a singular factor bumping up the prevalence of PTSD among women.

Really don't think he adds much to the analysis other than righteousness, but I am reminded of this:

Is PTSD Contagious?

The Root of the Problem

Is that psychs cannot stop themselves from naming and defining everything.

'I'm a monster': Veterans 'alone' in their guilt

With American troops at war for more than a decade, there's been an unprecedented number of studies into war zone psychology and an evolving understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. Clinicians suspect some troops are suffering from what they call "moral injuries" — wounds from having done something, or failed to stop something, that violates their moral code.
Though there may be some overlap in symptoms, moral injuries aren't what most people think of as PTSD, the nightmares and flashbacks of terrifying, life-threatening combat events. A moral injury tortures the conscience; symptoms include deep shame, guilt and rage. It's not a medical problem, and it's unclear how to treat it, says retired Col. Elspeth Ritchie, former psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.

What do you mean this isn't a medical problem?
This is OBSESSION.   Ruminating on anything is a sign of OCD. 
Why must you sub-sub-sub-classify it as "Moral Injury"?
Because you really truly believe the pathology is triggered by the event...so they can't be sick if they haven't been "traumatized".

This is an illness.  The object of the obsession is irrelevant.  
When the illness flares up you become obsessed with whatever you are doing.

Video games.  Boyfriends. Girlfriends. Work. Shopping.  Zombies.  My neighbor Joan is clearly obsessed with gardening...

It's the disproportionate feeling of importance and the inability to stop that's pathological.
And there are already a few "medical problems" known to cause that.

The reason people are sick is because ever since Freud- psychs have been allowed to pull "inner conflict" nonsense like this out of their ass and be taken seriously.

The Battle Within

Most U.S. Soldiers May Suffer From Sleep Problems

They looked at 725 active-duty members of the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy, and found that 85 percent of them had a sleep disorder. The most common was obstructive sleep apnea (51 percent), followed by insomnia (25 percent).
The participants slept an average of only about 5.7 hours per night, and 42 percent of them reported sleeping five hours or less per night. Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep a night to feel alert and well-rested the next day, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The researchers also found that about 58 percent of the participants had one or more medical conditions. Of service-related illnesses, the most common were depression (23 percent), anxiety (17 percent), post-traumatic stress disorder (13 percent) and mild traumatic brain injury (13 percent).

OSA and insomnia and hypervigilance.   Hmmmm.   I wonder what that could be.

Oh Mercy, I just saw this.
VA study: 22 vets commit suicide every day

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Is PTSD Contagious?

YES.

It's a strep infection.   But that family looks gluten intolerant too.

Tic Tic Tic Tic Tic

2012 military suicides hit a record high of 349

Your Tax Dollars

Viagra for vets costs surge on war disorders

The Department of Veterans Affairs has almost tripled spending on erectile-dysfunction drugs in the past six years as war-related psychological disorders contribute to sexual difficulties .

Yoo-hoo, I think this might be more effective.   In oh so many ways.
Put your money where your mouth is.

Where Medical and Legal Theater Meet

To create whatever outcome is the most beneficial to themselves.

Supreme Court won't take combat veterans' mental health appeal

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a challenge by veterans who said delays by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in processing combat-related mental health claims contributed to suicides by veterans.

One Step Forward

Military studying if fish oil can cut suicide risk

In the controlled study being conducted for the Army, veterans already receiving mental health services will be given smoothies high in omega-3s for a six-month period. Others will be given a placebo.

I clicked on this right away to see if they were using pills or liquids.

This may actually work... depending on what else is in the smoothies.

Fruit juice and sugar will likely cancel the effect.

Milkshakes might be more effective.