Posted by Pfinstegg on October 20, 2002, at 23:30:34
In reply to Re: Pfinstegg going on about cortisol again g, posted by Seamus2 on October 20, 2002, at 20:10:36
From what I have read, depression and anxiety are hallmarks of "real" Cushing's disease as well as the "pseudo" form.
That's such an interesting question about when the stress has to occur to dysregulate the HPA axis most readily. I don't know, but I'm assuming that the most vulnerable time is surely infancy and childhood. In one of the studies from Germany, baby tree shrews were separated from their mothers for three hours each day, and within several weeks had elevated cortisol and abnormally small hippocampuses. What is so interesting about tianeptine is that when the baby shrews were given it daily and separated in the same way, the cortisol and hippocampuses remained normal- it stress-proofed them!
I saw one article about Holocaust survivors- how much trouble they have with chronic depression: the article included reports that their cortisol tends to be permanently elevated. I get the impression that HPA dysregulation doesn't happen all at once, but is set in motion by trauma, and then in some people takes on a life of its own, with the brain slowly becoming less and less able to down-regulate the cortisol. But then there are lots of other people who undergo the same kinds of trauma. which may or may not be followed by depression, and recover permanently, with or without treatment. In Europe, particularly, they are studying how social support may play a crucial role in enabling people to get back to normal. It makes one think about how important Psychobabble may be to us all.
I'm doing a Medline search now to try to find out more about which AD's affect cortisol favorably. There is more information than I had thought, and it seems that all classes of AD's can have that effect when they are successful- the tricyclics, SSRI's and even the mood stabilizers.
I'm pleased that there are others here who are interested in this besides me..
Pfinstegg
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:124268
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021019/msgs/124469.html