Tag Archives: healthcare

Persistent Impact of Trauma: Biological Implications

Hey Warriors.
I know it’s been a few weeks, so thanks for being patient!  It has definitely been a heavy past couple of weeks, and being a practitioner it’s hard to talk about health topics when more pressing issues have been at hand.

We know that this has been a long overdue injustice just coming to the surface.  
So many things I learned in school about healthcare always targeted those of color with increased risk for so many health conditions.  We do know there is white privilege, poverty leading to improper food availability and quality of food in African American neighborhoods consisting of mainly fast food and no access to healthier options.  This makes a huge impact as you can imagine in being able to live a healthy lifestyle.  But what about the other factors?  What about trauma?  What does that do biologically to one’s body over time… What does that do to a race overtime? 

If we look back in history of other injustices that have happened with the Native Americans and holocaust era, an impact still remains on those families that experienced the trauma. The past for many Native Americans is weaved into their modern lives. Racial and historical  experiences challenge us as clinicians: how can we understand the persistent impact of trauma—not just on the individuals affected but on the children of survivors and even on additional generations?

Researchers wanted to know more about this and began studying the aftermath of the holocaust. Many after the holocaust were diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. In the years that followed, accounts circulated of children of survivors who were also severely affected, but were believed to be from behavioral causes with the parents neglect.  Decades later, more research was conducted using modern tools and found many biological signs associated with trauma.   Interestingly, their children showed the same biological and epigenetic markers. On one hand, this demonstrated that the syndrome seen in the children was not merely behavioral—it was biologically mediated in the same way as their parents’.

It also raised a more profound question: did the children acquire these changes by virtue of their own traumatic experiences (being raised by a PTSD parent)? Or was it possible that there might be some other process at play?

” A team led by Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler developed an animal model that allowed them to tightly control all relevant parameters. First, they fear-conditioned mice to a specific olfactory stimulus (acetophenone). As expected, the mice showed an enhanced fear response to the stimulus smell. They further showed that the observed behavioral change was mediated by epigenetic upregulation of the acetophenone receptor. This was all consistent with previously published literature.

What they found next was truly stunning. The team extracted sperm from the fear-conditioned mice, performed in vitro fertilization, and then raised the offspring separately from the biological fathers. Extraordinarily, these offspring—and another generation beyond them—demonstrated increased fear responses to acetophenone. Moreover, their sensitivity stemmed from the same increased expression of the olfactory receptor, owing to epigenetic changes. These findings offered potential mechanistic proof that a learned behavior could be passed from one generation to the next via an epigenetic mechanism. In addition, they demonstrated the plausibility of Yehuda’s suggestion that biological symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder could be passed directly from one generation to the next.”

Wow.. Right?  I’ve also read studies prior that stated that emotional traumas can track back several generations, without us even knowing.

I raise this topic today not to dishearten our colored communities, as I have so much love and righteous anger for what has been happening.  This is to say that a healthy lifestyle seems impossible for some communities because of decades of trauma. This means that pain from trauma does not cease with death but may rather be woven into the (epi-)genetic architecture of generations that follow. Think about the genetic changes, the brain changes that occur.  It always shocks me when generational traumas come up in a session with a client as to what they can be holding onto.

  What if our healthcare system started to address this? 
I know, it would take a lot more things first. Like access to the care to for one.

HOPE.

There is also reason for hope: follow-up data from the mouse studies discussed above has shown that exposure therapy before mating appears to reverse the next generation’s inheritance of the behavioral and neurobiological marks of the previous trauma.  Perhaps there are ways in humans to heal (or at least prevent further transmission of) such wounds. I know this to be true.  Generational holds can be broken.  know this is not a typical health talk today, but it’s a REAL talk. 

As clinicians we must acknowledge and appreciate the biological implications of trauma, even without being a psychologist or psychiatrist. Trauma can assimilate in the body as pain.  And who comes to us for pain? EVERYONE. Furthermore, we need to increase our understanding of those who suffer from their ancestors’ traumatic experiences or current ones. Too many in the healthcare industry try to treat emotional ailments with physical medicine.  Yes means for food and availability of healthier options is of vital importance, but also during this time I think more than ever need to realize just the trauma aspect this has had on so many generations for too long. Generational fear, living in a free country that enslaves people.

The amazing thing about epi-genetics is you can change them.  We do that through mindset and nutrition and environment all the time.  Our hope is through this movement that things actually do change, they have to!  I think we are seeing some good come out, but I do believe we all need to not be silent anymore. And clinicians definitely need to do better. 

To all those who have been peacefully marching I support you.  To all my colored patients, I hope you know I love you and will continue to help spread the word.
Lastly,
I highly recommend you read the book white fragility for more information about this topic.  Please know that I am not discrediting those not of color that have gone through hardship or trauma either.

Share this to other healthcare providers.  They may need to start taking a different approach.

Also, thank you to all who gave gifts and wished me happy birthday last week.  I appreciate you all!

That is all for now.

Wishing you a happy and healthy week.

Dr. hamel
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