Blossom

Moderator
Forum Supporter
Joined
Nov 23, 2013
Messages
11,031
Location
Indiana USA
Reading this thread is like going to therapy X100. Great insights everyone.
 

Regina

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
6,511
Location
Chicago
Thanks for that, I really like the analogy of the estrogenized cells! I was wondering if maybe our sense of intuition, or "gut instinct" as we tend to call it, is influenced by our gut serotonin. I have often felt like my intuition is right, but then I tend to question it, possibly due to the serotonin in the gut creating a dysfunction and causing me to second guess myself. So perhaps all of these things we are working on with supplements, etc. is really helping us to get through to our truer selves, allowing us to stop being influenced as strongly so we can start to recognize our own thoughts, needs, wants instead of being pulled as you put it!
Yeah, I bet it probably is serotonin. It's so amazing how it is all interconnected. Ray Peat right again. :): I still have compassion for people that I have to walk away from. But compassion "seeing reality" is not the same as guilt. I don't feel guilty saying no. It's more like, "when the false is seen as false".
I agree with it sometimes requiring supplements. Haidut once said something like, 'until the organism significantly abates stress, it is difficult to get better.." (or something like that. Structure and function are interdependent.
 

johnwester130

Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2015
Messages
3,563
A great study showing that controlling for factors such as sex, marital status, lower educational level, lifestyle factors, existing chronic and acute disease, substance abuse, etc did NOT change dementia risk. The only thing that correlated (likely causatively) with risk of dementia (e.g. Alzheimer disease) was level of psychological stress. And what was the cause of this psychological stress? Failure to adapt, driven by perception of "unsolvable problems". In Peat-speak that translates to "learned helplessness" resulting in energetic deficiency and the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAD) of Selye.
So, there it is in plain view - Alzheimer disease (AD) may be nothing more than the response to chronic insurmountable stress. No need to invoke viruses or other mysterious pathogens, which is very fashionable lately.

Psychological distress is a risk factor for dementia
"...A new study suggests that vital exhaustion - which can be perceived as an indicator of psychological distress - is a risk factor for future risk of dementia. Researchers from the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen have, in collaboration with the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, and the Danish Dementia Research Centre, shown that being distressed in late midlife is associated with a higher risk of dementia in later life. The findings contribute to our understanding of psychological distress as an important risk factor that should receive more focus when considering prevention initiatives in relation to later dementia. Psychological distress can be defined as a state of emotional suffering sometimes accompanied by somatic symptoms. Vital exhaustion is operationalized as feelings of unusual fatigue, increased irritability and demoralization and can be considered an indicator of psychological distress. Vital exhaustion is suggested to be a response to unsolvable problems in individuals' lives, in particular when being incapable of adapting to prolonged exposure to stressors. The physiological stress response, including cardiovascular changes and excessive production of cortisol over a prolonged period, may serve as the mechanism linking psychological distress with an increased risk of dementia. Sabrina Islamoska, Ph.D. student from the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, has shown a dose-response relation between symptoms of vital exhaustion reported in late midlife and the risk of dementia later in life. Islamoska explains: "For each additional symptom of vital exhaustion, we found that the risk of dementia rose by 2%. Participants reporting 5 to 9 symptoms had a 25% higher risk of dementia than those with no symptoms, while those reporting 10 to 17 symptoms had a 40% higher risk of dementia compared with not having symptoms."

"..."We were particularly concerned whether the symptoms of vital exhaustion would be an early sign of dementia. Yet, we found an association of the same magnitude even when separating the reporting of vital exhaustion and the dementia diagnoses with up to 20 years," Islamoska said. The results of this study supports that distress in late midlife may potentially increase the risk of dementia in later life. Despite adjusting for several other well-known risk factors for dementia, such as sex, marital status, lower educational level, lifestyle factors and comorbidities, the risk of dementia associated with vital exhaustion did not change."


do you believe learned helplessness is caused by diet or by culture and lifestyle ?
 

Vinero

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
1,551
Age
32
Location
Netherlands
Here is some evidence for a bacterial cause of alzheimer. Like I said, I don't doubt that stress and learned helplessness and lowered energy production cause alzheimer. But I think infection alone can trigger stress, learned helplessness and defective mitochondria. The endotoxin and bacterial toxins that are produced likely poisons mitochondrial energy production and leads to high inflammation and tissue damage, leading to things like Alzheimer.

The Cause of Alzheimer's Could Be Coming From Inside Your Mouth, Study Claims
Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains: Evidence for disease causation and treatment with small-molecule inhibitors
 
Last edited:
OP
haidut

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
do you believe learned helplessness is caused by diet or by culture and lifestyle ?

I think any aspect of the environment can cause it. The fact that is has become so prevalent today is probably due to diet, culture, lifestyle, toxin exposure, etc all converging in a perfect storm since all of these have taken such turn for the worse over the last 20 years. So, while a person 20 years ago had the option of neutralizing a bad aspect of the environment with another one that was good, these days there don't seem to be many option left uncompromised. Hence the epidemic of depression, suicide, disease, etc.
 

Fractality

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
772
Here is some evidence for a bacterial cause of alzheimer. Like I said, I don't doubt that stress and learned helplessness and lowered energy production cause alzheimer. But I think infection alone can trigger stress, learned helplessness and defective mitochondria. The endotoxin and bacterial toxins that are produced likely poisons mitochondrial energy production and leads to high inflammation and tissue damage, leading to things like Alzheimer.

The Cause of Alzheimer's Could Be Coming From Inside Your Mouth, Study Claims
Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains: Evidence for disease causation and treatment with small-molecule inhibitors

Time to buy ACV to add to MCT oil and AC powder drink.
 

Elron

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
74
I have extreme learned helplessness. Days go by in cycles of repetition as I sink deeper, the specifics of each day being forgotten but not the feelings. Adaptation has failed, I can’t remember enough to improve. Idk what to do, often I feel like I’m dying on the inside. I’m worried one day I’ll wake up and I won’t be there. There is definitely a cognitive element, which I suppose has to do with retrieval if information which uprrgulates retrieval in general, allowing better processing.
 

Goobz

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2019
Messages
302
Location
Australia
Very interesting study.

I would note though, that the study shows that these stressors are correlated with developing dementia, it doesn’t show that they are the cause.

An inability to deal with stress is currently considered a well known symptom of dementia (as well as many other mental diseases, of course). Its also known that the brain changes seen in dementia begin decades before clinical symptoms appear.

It could be that the early physiological changes of dementia cause an inability to respond to stressful situations (which makes sense if your brain cells are dying, getting clogged up with proteins, and your brain is shrinking). Yet the stress is a symptom, that then becomes an exacerbator, but is not the initial cause.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom