Study Finds Autoimmune Diseases in Vets
Posted on: Saturday, 8 March 2003, 06:00 CST
Study Finds Autoimmune Diseases in Vets
source: Associated Press Health News
Vietnam veterans who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder are also more likely to have autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, psoriasis and hypothyroidism, a study has found.
The analysis of more than 4,000 Vietnam veterans is the first to show that such stress can damage the immune system enough to cause disease.
"When you are exposed to an extremely traumatic event it affects both your mind and your body," said Rachel Yehuda, director of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder program at the Bronx Veterans Medical Center in New York. She was not connected with the study.
Joseph A. Boscarino, a senior scientist at the New York Academy of Medicine, used health data on Vietnam veterans that was collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 20 years after the men were discharged from military service. He found no increase in autoimmune disease among 2,490 Vietnam veterans compared with 1,972 others who served elsewhere during the same period.
But when Boscarino pulled out the 124 Vietnam veterans who had exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the six months before they were studied, he found a dramatic increase. Those men were three times more likely to have an autoimmune illness than veterans not experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.
"This is an interesting finding," Boscarino said. "It should apply to other post-traumatic stress disorder victims regardless of the conflict or the situation."
Boscarino will present his research Saturday at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Phoenix, Ariz.
Researchers have known for decades that stress causes the body to secrete hormones that can harm the immune system. In a 1999 study, Boscarino showed that Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were more likely to have abnormally high T-cell counts and white blood cell counts, both signs of a highly active immune system.
Boscarino has also shown that Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to suffer from coronary artery disease.
His research does not mean that people with post-traumatic stress disorder are bound to develop heart disease or an autoimmune illness, Boscarino said. But it does demonstrate that preventing and treating the mental problems associated with trauma may help patients avoid physical diseases later on.
"The lesson here is that when someone has been exposed to extreme trauma they're in the spotlight for a couple of days," Yehuda said. "But we don't brace ourselves for the long haul at all."
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