PTSD Tag

20 Mar

Posted at 12:13h in Author Interviews, Heart Disease, PTSD
Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone Deployment Health Research Department, Naval Health Research Center San Diego, CAMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone MD Deployment Health Research Department, Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone: There have been several studies examining the health outcomes of service members who recently deployed to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  However, none of these studies to date had examined the potential role of military deployment experiences and PTSD on coronary heart disease (CHD) among young US service members.  We believed that this would be an important study to undertake since these data would not only be useful to the US military, but may also have implications regarding job-related stressors on the health of young adults in the general population. After studying over 60,000 current and former US military personnel, we found that those who deployed and experienced combat were at a 60%-90% increased risk of subsequently developing CHD.  This finding was noted when we examined both self-reported CHD and medical record validated coronary heart disease.  These data suggest that experiences of intense stress may increase the risk for coronary heart disease over a relatively short period among young, previously healthy adults.

12 Mar

Posted at 00:41h in Author Interviews, Inflammation, JAMA, Mental Health Research, PTSD
Dr. Dewleen Baker MD Veterans Affairs (VA) San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Dewleen Baker MD Veterans Affairs (VA) San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Baker: The main finding of this study is that a marker of peripheral inflammation, plasma CRP may be prospectively associated with PTSD symptom emergence, suggesting that inflammation may predispose to PTSD.

18 Dec

Posted at 17:40h in Author Interviews, Brain Injury, JAMA, PTSD
Dewleen G. Baker, MD Department of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of California, Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System Veterans Affairs Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health San Diego, CaliforniaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dewleen G. Baker, MD Department of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of California, Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System Veterans Affairs Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health San Diego, California MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Baker: Pre-deployment psychiatric symptoms, combat intensity, and traumatic brain injury (TBI) were significant predictors of post-deployment PTSD symptom severity.  However, the strongest predictor was deployment-related TBI; mild TBI increased symptom scores by 23%, and moderate to severe injuries increased scores by 71%.

03 Dec

Posted at 23:08h in Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research
Ian Kronish, MD, MPHMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ian Kronish, MD, MPH Assistant Professor of Medicine Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health Division of General Medicine Columbia University Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Kronish: Among primary care patients with persistently uncontrolled blood pressure despite medication treatment, we found that medication non-adherence was more than twice as common in patients with PTSD (68%) as compared to patients without PTSD (26%). The association between PTSD and medication non-adherence remained present after adjustment for key covariates including regimen complexity and depression. Recent research shows that PTSD not only contributes to psychological distress, but is also associated with increased risk for incident and recurrent cardiovascular disease. The data from our study suggest that medication non-adherence may be an important mechanism by which PTSD increases risk for cardiovascular disease.