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a human study.
Hormone levels contribute to stress resilience
Performance of military combat divers under stress is affected by their hormone levels
Philadelphia, PA, 5 August 2009 – It is important to understand what biological mechanisms contribute to an individual’s capacity to be resilient under conditions of extreme stress, such as those regularly experienced by soldiers, police, and firefighters. Dr. Charles A. Morgan III and his colleagues from Yale University and the VA National Center for PTSD have worked closely with collaborators at the Special Forces Underwater Warfare Operations Center to study special operations soldiers enrolled in the military Combat Diver Qualification Course (CDQC).Dehydroepiandrosterone, or “DHEA” as it is commonly known, is a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress. Although medical scientists have known for over a decade that DHEA provides beneficial, anti-stress effects in animals, they did not know until now whether this was also true for humans.
The scientists completed psychological and hormone assessments on a group of soldiers the day before they began the month-long CDQC, and immediately after their final pass/fail exam – a highly stressful, nocturnal, underwater navigation exercise.
They found that soldiers with more DHEA performed better during the final underwater navigation exam than those with less DHEA. These findings are being published by Elsevier in the August 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry.
Underwater navigation is a task that relies on an area of the brain called the hippocampus that is very sensitive to the negative effects of stress. “Animal studies have shown that DHEA buffers against stress, in part, by modulating receptors in this region of the brain,” explained Dr. Morgan. “These findings are important in understanding why and how soldiers may differ in their ability to tolerate stress and also raise the possibility that, in the future, compounds like DHEA might be used to protect military personnel from the negative impact of operational stress.”
Clearly, additional research is still needed but these findings are a step forward in the quest to help prevent or better treat the symptoms of stress-related disorders that these high-risk individuals experience.
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Notes to Editors:
The article is “Relationships Among Plasma Dehydroepiandrosterone and Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate, Cortisol, Symptoms of Dissociation, and Objective Performance in Humans Exposed to Underwater Navigation Stress” by Charles A. Morgan III, Ann Rasmusson, Robert H. Pietrzak, Vladimir Coric, and Steven M. Southwick. Authors Morgan, Pietrzak, Coric, and Southwick are affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut. Morgan, Pietrzak, and Southwick are also with the National Center for PTSD, VA CT Healthcare System, West Haven, Connecticut. Rasmusson is from the Department of Psychiatry, Boston University, and the National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, in Boston, Massachusetts. The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 66, Issue 4 (August 15, 2009), published by Elsevier.
@Pat Quigley 1286 wrote:
Hormone levels contribute to stress resilience…
Dehydroepiandrosterone, or “DHEA” as it is commonly known, is a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress. Although medical scientists have known for over a decade that DHEA provides beneficial, anti-stress effects in animals, they did not know until now whether this was also true for humans….
They found that soldiers with more DHEA performed better during the final underwater navigation exam than those with less DHEA. These findings are being published by Elsevier in the August 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry.
Interesting.
However, as we know, the adrenal cortex simultaneously mass produces other hormones / signals in response to stress in addition to DHEA. The adrenal cortex simultaneously produces Cortisol, Pregnenolone, Progesterone, DHEA, Androstenedione, Testosterone, Estradiol, etc.
This is a huge confounding set of variables, each with a distinct effect on brain function.
But, a priori, a low DHEA-s would tend to predict impaired cortisol production in response to stress. It is interesting to see how this did not pan out in the study by looking at the details (since I don’t want to spend $30 for the article, I’ll have to wait until I can get to a university medical library to get a free copy. As an aside, I love publishers that release free online copies of articles after a few years past publication. Collecting articles quickly gets expensive at $30 per article.).
Also, it would be interesting to see how metabolism of DHEA plays a role.
The a study of the use of DHEA in treatment of depression had a trend toward effectiveness. But the plot of data indicated that some patients got better and some got worse (cough). To me, this indicated that DHEA went in two directions depending on the patient – toward either testosterone or toward estrogens. And this resulted in the bifurcated outcome.
Dhea is some studies (validity unknown) is known to help depression through several different mechanism. The one that I found to be the most promising is the effect on serotonin. In one study (locate it later) noted that dhea increases urinary excretion of 5hiaa which is a metabolite of serotonin. As we all know serotonin is a major neurotransmitter involved with depression. Another way as noted by Dr M is that dhea could help depression by helping to be metabolized in to estrogens which in studies on elderly people can help elevated mood, protect bones. The mysterious thing about DHEA what governs it control to go down a specific pathway. In some men 20-25 years of age we have given to ones that had low dhea and low testosterone, but optimal cortisol production which resulted in an increase of T levels by 50% or greater. Other men that where on TRT that had low estrogen when given a good amount of DHEA there was an increase in dhea but no increase in estrodial or bio T. So the question is where did it all go? When given opportunity we try to run urinary hormone test to see exactly where these hormones where going. In every one ran there is always a different response. This is what makes HRT so challenging because every one body will have a different response to particular treatment modality. One can say HRT is like russian roulette. You just have to some time roll the dice and look to see where they fall then readjust things from there. Just when think you got a person body balanced and they are feeling good. Murphy law kicks it and you are back to square one. This why i love HRT and cellular medicine because each case is different and always challenging.
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