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January 1 - January 3, 2019
It can alter the way DNA is read and how cells replicate, and it can dramatically increase the risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes—even Alzheimer’s.
a biological process that worked on
the brain to disrupt normal functioning?
critic James Baldwin said, “This is the San Francisco that America pretends does not exist.”
Dr. Tyrone Hayes was studying the effects of corticosteroids (stress hormones)
instructive chaos
Dr. Basil Burke, is a Jamaican immigrant,
there is a molecular mechanism behind every natural phenomenon—you
the best scientists didn’t. They used their excitement and enthusiasm as a bridge
from the mundane to the revelatory.
Day to day, good scientists actively engineer the conditions for discovery by making the most of accidents.
Hormones are an organism’s chemical messengers; the information they carry through the bloodstream stimulates a wide range of biological processes.
The tadpoles’ stress response to overcrowding was adaptive, but only if it happened at the right time during development.
High levels of corticosterone affects the function of other hormones and body systems.
How hormones affect one another and, as a result, the human body can be complicated, but it’s hugely important.
Maintaining homeostasis is the key to survival, so cortisol shows up when the body detects a change in the environment that threatens to push it off balance.
a lack of thyroid hormone in the body has wildly different effects depending on when it happens.
striking data about obesity rates in high-risk communities and asking myself, Could this be related to cortisol? Is it possible that the daily threat of violence and homelessness breathing down your neck is not only associated with poor health but potentially the cause of it?
what people experienced in childhood could be enough to set them on a devastating medical trajectory.
trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT
1998 article in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine: “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study,” by Dr. Vincent
Felitti, Dr. Robert Anda, and colleagues.
Robert Anda. Anda had spent years at the CDC
ten specific categories of ACEs.
Emotional abuse (recurrent)
Physical abuse (recurrent) Sexual abuse (contact) Physical neglect Emotional neglect Substance abuse in the household (e.g., living with an alcoholic or a person with a substance-abuse problem) Mental illness in the household (e.g., living with someone who suffered from depression or mental illness or who had attempted
sui...
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Mother treated violently Divorce or parental separation Criminal behavior in household (e.g., a hous...
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the higher a person’s ACE score, the greater the risk to his or her health.
The original ACE Study was done in a population that was 70 percent Caucasian and 70 percent college-educated.
also had great health care.
ACE Study makes it clear that adverse
childhood experiences in and of themselves are a risk factor for many of the most common and serious diseases in the United States (and worldwide), regardless of income or race or access to care.
there
is a connection between early life adversity and well-known killers like heart disease and cancer.
With PTSD, the stress response repeatedly confuses current stimuli with the past in such a dramatic way that it becomes hard for these vets to live in the present.
The problem with PTSD is that it becomes entrenched; the stress response is caught in the past, stuck on repeat.
The body senses danger, and it sets off a firestorm of chemical reactions aimed to protect itself.
But most important, the body remembers. The stress-response system is a miraculous result
of evolution that enabled our species to survive and thriv...
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When it’s in good working order, it can help save your life, but when it’s out of balance, it can shorten it.
The amygdala: the brain’s fear center
Prefrontal cortex: the front part of the brain that regulates cognitive and executive function, including judgment and mood and emotions
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis: initiates the production of cortisol (longer-acting stress ...
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Sympatho-adrenomedullary (SAM) axis: initiates the production of adrenaline and noradrenaline (short-acting stress hormon...
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Hippocampus: p...
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emotional information, critical for consoli...
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Noradrenergic nucleus in the locus coeruleus: the within-the-brain stress-response system that regulates mood, irritability, locomotion, arou...
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Some of the effects of cortisol are similar to those of adrenaline—it raises blood pressure and blood sugar, inhibits cognition (clear thinking), and destabilizes mood. It also disrupts sleep,
cortisol
