Date:   12/9/2006 10:08:44 PM ( 19 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=788816

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Post Traumatic Stress disorder is known as one illness that seems to be resistant to treatment.

The reason appears to be that there is a great emphasis on the psychological component of the illness at the expense of the biological angle.

True, a trauma of whatever kind will trigger the release of adrenaline. This in turn will interfere with the production of feel good neurotransmitters such as serotonin. The stress hormone is needed to deal with the trauma.
When people recover from a trauma - an environmental stress situation - they start to produce the feel good neurochemicals such as serotonin and life resumes.

But the remarkable thing about PTSD patients is that after the resolution of the trauma they continue to feel depressed and cannot explain why, except to say that it is somehow related to the trauma. This is natural because at the time of the trauma the depression started.

Most of conventional treatment centers around either drug therapy (SSRIs) or psychotherapy. But is is well-known that conventional treatment leaves much to be desired. Only about 40% of patients do have some benefits from either drug therapy and/or psychotherapy, leaving about 60% of patients with treatment resistant depression, including PTSD.

See: Insel, TR 2006.

Apart from the inevitable side effects of drugs, they work to some degree, because PTSD has a powerful biological factor, without which there would not be such a thing as PTSD.

PTSD seem to be resistant to treatment because drugs generally do not address the underlying causes of chemical imbalances, they are palliative.

There are many nutritional reasons why PTSD is such a persistent illness. For the brain to produce the feel good neurotransmitters such as serotonin it needs a wide variety of nutrients found in food.

Serotonin is produced not only from tryptophan, but the body requires other nutrients - such as coenzymes, zinc, magnesium, vitamin B6, Vitamin B12 and so on - to assemble the various neurotransmitters, necessary for mental well-being. Sometime being on a "healthy diet", although absolutely essential, may be the very cause of ill-health. The Western 'healthy' diet is often laced with heavy metals, and preservatives that an cause havoc in metabolism.

The worst aspect is perhaps the presence of allergies and food sensitivities, that affect some people who otherwise are on a healthy diet.

For the body to produce neurotransmitters from nutritional precursors it needs biological energy called ATP. Thus the body is not unlike any other machine that depends on energy for it biochemical operations.

A major cause of energy starvation of the brain is insulin resistance. This block the effects of insulin in pushing glucose (source of all biological energy) into cells for metabolism. Thus although a person may have high levels of sugar (hyperglycemia), glucose is not entering the cells for conversion to biological energy. Instead it may be stored as fat cells, and hence we see an association between depression and obesity or weight problems.

High levels of glucose trigger the release of more insulin (hyperinsulinism) from the pancreas, which usually results in a sudden drop in blood sugar levels. This is called the hypoglycemic syndrome, marked by wildly fluctuating blood sugar levels. A sudden drop in blood sugar causes brain cell starvation - a dangerous situation - and as a consequence the hypothalamus sends an hormonal message to the adrenal glands to pour adrenaline into the system.

This stress hormone functions to increase blood sugar levels by converting sugar stores (glycogen) back into glucose and thereby feeding the brain again with energy.

It is very unfortunate that conventional medicine still does not recognize the hypoglycemic syndrome and are usually unaware how it can be tested with the four hour Glucose Tolerance Test (GTTH). This may be one of the reasons why conventional medicine and psychiatry are so ineffective in helping people with PTSD.

Therefore people with PTSD may be said to produce high levels of stress hormones unrelated to external events, which are then psychologically linked to past traumas. These surges of adrenaline can occur in the middle of the night and cause nightmares, and it is no wonder that many take to alcohol or other drugs to suppress the symptoms.

The hypoglycemic syndrome can also be tested with a paper-and-pencil test at home, called the NBI, although this test is somewhat less accurate.

Thus there is hope for PTSD patients and it is best to discuss this with a Nutritional Doctor.

For more information see:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Hypoglycemia here.

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