The impact of PTSD severe stress and trauma on the Immune System

Back in 1986, before it became accepted that stress and trauma impact the immune system, James Pennabaker, a University of Texas professor, turned his intro to Psychology class into a lab experiment. He believed that people pay a price for suppressing traumatic life events and trauma and set out to prove it.

He divided his class intro 3 writing groups: one which was asked to write about what is currently going on in their lives, one which wrote about the facts and details of a past traumatic or stressful event they had gone through, and the third would write the facts of a past traumatic event plus their emotions and feelings about it, and the impact it had on their lives.

65% of the 200 students wrote about a traumatic childhood event. The death of a family member was the most common, 22% of the women and 10% of the men wrote about a sexual trauma prior to age 17.

Despite the young age of the students, they suffered from a range of health problems including cancer, high blood pressure, headaches, flu, and digestive problems.

Those who had reported a sexual trauma had been hospitalized an average of 1.7 days in the previous year, almost twice the rate of the others.

Suppressing trauma and core emotions by pretending they never happened can lead to a host of physical problems, as it takes a tremendous amount of energy to suppress our feelings. Trauma suppression causes stress hormones to flood the body for years on end.  Often our suppressed emotions express themselves as headaches, muscle aches, asthma attacks, digestive troubles, sexual problems, and irrational behaviors.

Suppressing our emotional pain does not prevent our body from the physical stress responses.

Traumatized children have 50 times the rates of asthma as nontraumatized children.

A study of 120,572 active military personnel published in the journal BMC Psychiatry revealed that the risk of developing select autoimmune diseases was 58% higher for those with a history of PTSD!

The autoimmune diseases measured were rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel diseases and multiple sclerosis.

A System on High Alert : PTSD and Chronic Inflammation

Chronic Stress from PTSD can lead to chronic inflammation.

THE INFLAMMATORY EXPLOSION:

Studies have found that people with PTSD have high levels of pro-inflammatory molecules like interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). Persistent high levels of these molecules indicates an ongoing state of immune activation.

Inflammation has been linked to heart disease, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, virtually every chronic disease. 

Immune Activation or Immune Suppression

Although PTSD causes immune activation and inflammation, over time it can also cause immune suppression. Long term immune activation cause the immune system to dysfunction, attacking the body's own healthy cells, but then not recognizing invading viruses and bacteria.

Immune dysfunction can cause reduced lymphocyte production.

• Reduced Lymphocyte Production: Chronic stress from PTSD can suppress the production of immune cells like natural killer (NK) cells and T cells, which are crucial for fighting infections and abnormal cells

This suppression makes individuals with PTSD more prone to infections and slower wound healing. It can also potentially increase the risk of developing cancer due to reduced immune surveillance.

Healing from PTSD is no simple matter, and every person is different.  The practice of the medical establishment is to medicate the whole population.  I know friends who were diagnosed with Bipolar over a 5 minute zoom call with a psychiatrist! Of course he prescribed medications.  

Antidepressants and antianxiety medications do not cure depression and anxiety! At best they help manage symptoms temporarily while causing a many side effects. And they are incredibly addictive. 

 In the book The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van de Kolk M.D. underscores the need for treating the root cause of severe anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems which often are rooted in trauma. In his words "drugs cannot "cure" trauma; they can only dampen the expressions of a disturbed physiology."

Here are some of the Therapies for PTSD outlined in the book:

1) Talk therapy- acknowledging and talking about past traumas.  However, it has its limitations, as people are often afraid of opening up completely or try to portray a more positive reality than what really happened.

2) Writing Therapy- more effective than talk therapy, as people can open up about their experiences on paper more easily than talking, with less judgement. As written above - writing down our past traumas, emotions relating to it and how it impacted our lives actually boosts the immune system

3) Massage therapy- can be helpful for people with disassociation, trouble with touch, and with severe anxiety- start slow.

4) Exercise - dance, karate, tai chi anything that helps you get in touch with your body and accept its sensations. 

5) EMDR - eye movement desensitization

6) IFS- Internal Family Systems Therapy. Trauma sometimes causes the self to split into many parts, where different parts of the parts of the person go to war with each other. IFS cultivates a relationship between these parts of the self 

7) PBSP psychomotor therapy- some PTSD patients who dont respond to other therapies might benefit from this revolutionary therapy, especially those who felt unwanted and unseen as children, scared and afraid, or those who never felt safe growing up and thus  which recreates past traumatic events and allows the victim to feel what they felt back then and respond. Its like rewriting critical scenes of your life. 

This is a brief summary of a few of the treatments mentioned in the book.

Professor Linus Pauling's Belief in Nutrition for the Mind

Professor Linus Pauling was a strong advocate for using nutrition to treat mental health, and he criticized the medical community for dismissing vitamin therapy for psychological disorders. Just as a lack of certain vitamins or minerals causes physical illnesses—such as scurvy from a lack of Vitamin C or osteoporosis from a deficiency in calcium—deficiencies in specific vitamins and amino acids can lead to brain and mood disorders.

Other notable psychologists, including Dr. Abram Hoffer, supported this idea, with Hoffer successfully using Vitamin B3 to treat schizophrenia.

The Brain Needs Specific Nutrients to Thrive

Have you ever skipped a meal? Consumed junk food and perhaps experienced a headache, fatigue, or irritability. Some foods give an energy boost followed by a crash, while others may trigger tiredness right away.

It’s clear: what we eat directly affects how we feel. 

Poor eating habits can starve our brain of essential nutrients, leaving it underperforming.

We are eating foods grown in nutrient depleted soil. Much of the crops are genetically modified which actually causes inflammation in the body when we eat them.

Plus We eat foods that are picked too early, and shipped in dry ice or refrigeration.

What are we to do? How can we nourish our bodies with the food supply being so tainted?

Two of my brothers and my father are both incredibly health conscious. They are serious and regimented about their health routines and diet. It's admirable.

Below is the advice that my father and one of my brothers gave me years ago.

Consume as many fruits and vegetables as you can, cooked, raw etc... The more fresh vegetables you eat, the more it will compensate for the lack of nutrients.

Choose vegetables that are not sprayed.

Choose local over imported, tree ripened, organic (especially fruits/vegetables that are heavily sprayed), eat as many colorful fruits/as you can. see how your body reacts.

CARBOHYDRATES ARE CRUCIAL FOR MOOD AND OVERALL BRAIN HEALTH

Carbohydrates are crucial for mood.

The brain primarily runs on glucose from carbohydrates. 

But It's important to choose the right carbohydrates.

Avoid all processed or refined carbohydrates, which raise blood sugar and feed candida. Instead, opt for wholegrain, ancient non-GMO grains.

Kamut bread is the healthiest choice for those suffering from mood disorders.

Kamut is an ancient grain very high in B-vitamins. B vitamins are crucial for brain health. In fact, a lack of B vitamins cause cause depression, anxiety, irritability, lethargy, and fatigue.

To learn more about Kamut bread click here.

What most people might not know is that 50% of low thyroid patients suffer from depression. thats a huge percentage. In fact, depression is the first symptom of low thyroid.

Symptoms of low thyroid include:

1) Chronic Fatigue

2) intolerance to cold

3) Hair Loss

4) Hoarseness

5) Weight Gain - Slow metabolism. The thyroid gland regulates metabolism

6) Enlarged tongue- how can you tell if your tongue is enlarged? the outer rim of the tongues has ridges/grooves

7) Elevated Estrogen levels & Low Testosterone - Heavy periods cramping, low testosterone. For men low thyroid shows up as low testosterone. Both men and women need testosterone to prevent muscle loss and osteoporosis

8) Lower Cognitive Function.

If you think your thyroid needs a boost try our: THYROID REJUVENATION PLAN

At Joseph's Organic Bakery Our Thyroid Rejuvenation Plan has helped hundreds of customers with Low thyroid.

To learn more about the Thyroid Support Plan please call 954-541-4062

Thyroid Rejuvenation Plan:

1) Cistus Tea- Cistus Tea aids in thyroid rejuvenation.  click  here  to learn more

2) Green Tea- Cistus Tea and Green Tea work synergistically to combat inflammation associated with autoimmune disorders such as hypothyroid or low thyroid. Green Tea also assists with Liver Detoxification. Toxic liver can cause thyroid problems.

However, in case of caffeine sensitivity, eliminate the green tea and take the cistus tea alone.

click   here  to learn more

3) Balance - for women with low thyroid. click here to learn more

 4) Immune Pro - for men and women . click   here   to learn more

 5) Boost-  For men and Women with low energy, chronic stress, or high blood sugar

for more info call 954-541-4062

For a comprehensive thyroid support read this article

Are you Suffering from Iodine Deficiency and Low Thyroid? Don't Ignore these Signs – Joseph's Organic Bakery