Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease.
Veterans pain from post-traumatic emphasis on disorder, or PTSD, appear to be at higher endanger for heart disease. For the first time, researchers have linked PTSD with severe atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), as majestic by levels of calcium deposits in the arteries. The condition "is emerging as a significant jeopardize factor," said Dr Ramin Ebrahimi, co-principal investigator of a learning on the issue presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago. The authors are hoping that these and other, alike findings will prompt doctors, particularly primary punctiliousness physicians, to more carefully screen patients for PTSD and, if needed, follow up aggressively with screening and treatment.

Post-traumatic make a point of disorder - triggered by experiencing an event that causes intense fear, helplessness or awe - can include flashbacks, emotional numbing, overwhelming guilt and shame, being most startled, and difficulty maintaining close relationships. "When you go to a doctor, they ask questions about diabetes, boisterous blood pressure and cholesterol," said Ebrahimi, who is a research scientist at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration Center. "The purpose would be for PTSD to become part of routine screening for mettle disease risk factors".

Although PTSD is commonly associated with war veterans, it's now also by many linked to people who have survived traumatic events, such as rape, a severe accident or an earthquake, saturate or other natural disaster. The authors reviewed electronic medical records of 286,194 veterans, most of them manful with an average age 63, who had been seen at Veterans Administration medical centers in southern California and Nevada. Some of the veterans had continue been on active duty as far back as the Korean War.

Researchers also had access to coronary artery calcium CT c con images for 637 of the patients, which showed that those with PTSD had more calcium built up in their arteries - a peril factor for heart disease - and more cases of atherosclerosis. About three-quarters of those diagnosed with PTSD had some calcium build-up, versus 59 percent of the veterans without the disorder. As a group, the veterans with PTSD had more unfeeling ailment of their arteries, with an average coronary artery calcification situation of 448, compared to a score of 332 in the veterans without PTSD - a significantly higher reading.

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences.
Soldiers who diminished meek brain injuries from blasts have long-term changes in their brains, a minuscule new study suggests. Diagnosing mild brain injuries caused by explosions can be challenging using principle CT or MRI scans, the researchers said. For their study, they turned to a unique type of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging. The technology was used to assess the brains of 10 American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who had been diagnosed with compassionate upsetting brain injuries and a comparison group of 10 people without brain injuries.

The average adjust since the veterans had suffered their brain injuries was a little more than four years. The researchers found that the veterans and the kinship group had significant differences in the brain's white matter, which consists mostly of signal-carrying nerve fibers. These differences were linked with distinction problems, delayed memory and poorer psychomotor examine scores among the veterans. "Psychomotor" refers to movement and muscle ability associated with mentally ill processes.

Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans

Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans.
The brains of some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were injured by homemade bombs show an bizarre motif of damage, a small ruminate on finds. Researchers speculate that the damage - what they call a "honeycomb" pattern of broken and tumescent nerve fibers - might help explain the phenomenon of "shell shock". That style was coined during World War I, when trench warfare exposed troops to constant bombardment with exploding shells. Many soldiers developed an array of symptoms, from problems with view and hearing, to headaches and tremors, to confusion, appetite and nightmares.

Now referred to as blast neurotrauma, the injuries have become an effective issue again, said Dr Vassilis Koliatsos, the senior researcher on the new study. "Vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to a type of situations, including blasts from improvised chancy devices IEDs ," said Koliatsos, a professor of pathology, neurology and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

But even though the cognizance of shell shock goes back 100 years, researchers still positive little about what is actually going on in the brain. For the new study, published recently in the annual Acta Neuropathologica Communications, his team studied autopsied brain tissue from five US grapple veterans. The soldiers had all survived IED bomb blasts, but later died of other causes. The researchers compared the vets' percipience tissue to autopsies of 24 commoners who had died of various causes, including traffic accidents and drug overdoses.

The soldiers' brains showed a plain pattern of damage to nerve fibers in key regions of the brain - including the frontal lobes, which hold the whip hand memory, reasoning and decision-making. He said the "honeycomb" mould of small lesions was unlike the damage seen in people who died from head trauma in a car accident, or those who suffered "punch-drunk syndrome" - acumen degeneration caused by repeated concussions.