IRS,

I've read that women are typically underrepresented in clinical trials and studies because pharmeceutical companies prefer not to deal with whatever effect fluctuating hormone levels might have. If the study does not include the portion of the population the individual belongs to (race, age, gender, pregnancy status, ect.) how worthwhile is that study to the individual making the decision?

I guess I'm interested in hearing your professional opinion - if you care to share.

Ruddy

Honestly, I have never heard that assertion being made.

Perhpas it was just another cockeyed study? I can't remember the source at the moment but if I find it I'll let you know.

Anthony, it's funny, the very night this news story broke, your point is the first thing that came to mind. I was like, 'well no kidding, to get a concussion you must go through a trauma, and the trauma causes PTSD. Duh!'

LOL

What bothered me the most about this was that not even ABC reporter Bob Woodruff seemed to pick up on this. Bob's been through so much, his own recovery is miraculous (IMO) and now he is doing just incredible, amazing work covering our war wounded. And yet even his coverage of this story failed to mention PTSD 101: Trauma begets PTSD.

Or at least, if he did, I missed it. Which is entirely possible, so if I am barking up the wrong tree here, I apologize.

Anyway, great point. Glad to see someone speaking up!

Bailey

Hmmmm, so who or what was the payoff to them "misinterpreting" the data in this study?

I'm not questioning that it happened. I believe it did. I am just trying to figure out who stands to benefit from this "finding."

Bailey

I think your on the same wavelength as the rest of us bailey.... and its either for a name, a method or a drug they want to produce.... one or the other typically.

I just started reading a new book I got the other day, "risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder". The book is written by a collective group of world trauma experts, or so called, and is based on the neurological and genetic predispositions for determining PTSD. The book contains lots of studies performed, and then some new ones by this group. Upon immediately getting into the introduction I new every study was biased before they began. Nice to know stuff, excellent reading if your that way inclined, though the studies themselves are biased to find predisposition. They used people who had endured trauma in their life and studied their past history, families, etc. They went looking for predisposition factors, and they found what they went looking for.

Now if they went looking from the same group factors to disprove predisposition, they would have also found those. Except what they state towards those people, are they didn't meet the study criteria and where removed. Those who did not show what they wanted in trauma got removed. Easy to do that.... taint your group by looking for exact specifics, the specifics you need to find the answer you want, and you will achieve your end result. Funny... they found their end result, being predisposition factors and genetic traits. They removed anyone that didn't show such factors though as they has traumatic pasts also, but didn't meet their subject criteria.

So here are a bunch of supposed world experts proving something that they tainted the result right from start, yet the intent was to write a book and publish some papers. They achieved that... but everything else was pretty useless other than to develop a drug or a technique maybe which would also be useless.

How to Disprove This Theory

If you got 20 subjects of which the only criteria was that they had not endured what is classified as "extreme traumatic events" within life as defined to meed for something like PTSD. You study their lives, they grew up quite normal, got a kick in the arse when bad, went through school, all the typical things we do and grow with that makes us who we are. Nothing excessive or prolonged, nothing extreme, just typical life growing up.

Take those 20 people and using previous studies for predisposition or genetics you could ascertain maybe a couple might be higher to get PTSD than any others. You find out from each what they would find traumatic in their lives, extreme that is. A women may be fine being shot at or within a war zone, yet if you took her child and killed them her brain would break, PTSD would develop. A male the same thing. Even rape, expose them to it, torture, a multitude of traumatic events.

What you would find at the end is that all 20 would obtain PTSD if you pressed them hard enough with the right traumatic event to them as individuals. A male who might be all tough and strong, put him in war and he breaks. Even worse, rape him and he develops PTSD now. A woman may be raped and not find that traumatic enough to develop PTSD, yet put her in war zone and that is traumatic enough for her. Again, bring children into it... you could see the traumatic range could be quite extreme and that it is based on an individual level to what is traumatic enough for one person uniquely.

You could get all 20 of those subjects to develop PTSD by applying the right extreme traumatic events within their lives. Again, you could test all 20 and only two had some genetic predisposition to PTSD, though you could actually get all 20 to get it. You could even take the two who showed under other studies a predisposition, and instead expose them to every traumatic event that they did not perceive traumatic to themselves, and those two could walk away the only one's without PTSD.

You can figure for yourself just how easy it is to taint a test. Not all studies show bias, the majority do though.

Anthony - Are you suggesting that anyone could get PTSD?

It will be interesting to see where they go with the neurobiological/genetic theories. Have they identified a PTSD gene?

It seems that establishing a cause/effect relationship could be problematic. The Mayo Clinic lists these three things (among others) as risk factors for developing PTSD:

1. Having family members with PTSD.
2. Having family members with depression.
3. Lacking a good support system of family and friends.

Does that mean that I had a genetic predisposition to develop PTSD? I think it's more likely that a dysfunctional family and family members with serious mental health issues predisposed me to experiencing the trauma that caused PTSD.

That is exactly what I am saying. PTSD is not exclusive to only some. Because two people stand side by side and endure the same trauma, one develops PTSD and one does not, it doesn't mean the other person is immune to PTSD, it just means that that particular traumatic event was not interpreted by them as traumatic as the person beside them.

You can stand twins beside one another and expose them, one will get it, the other not. You could then expose the non-sufferer to another traumatic event, maybe still they may not get it, maybe they only needed that second event for their brain to snap! I have been studying genetic predispositions and the neurobiology of the brain with PTSD for some time, and not one single study clearly outlines, nor do studies find the same major aspects. I could only put that down to the subject group used. That alone outlines the difference in results.

Though yes, any and every human being can obtain PTSD, there is not immunity, merely they as an individual must be exposed to what they perceive as catastrophic trauma to themselves.