(Press-News.org) GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The trauma from hard combat can devastate veterans until old age, even as it influences others to be wiser, gentler and more accepting in their twilight years, a new University of Florida study finds.
The findings are ominous with the exposure of today's men and women to heavy combat in the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars on terror at a rate that probably exceeds the length of time for U.S. veterans during World War II, said UF sociologist Monika Ardelt.
"The study shows that we really need to take care of our veterans when they arrive home, because if we don't, they may have problems for the rest of their lives," she said. "Yet veterans report they are facing long waiting lines at mental health clinics and struggling to get the services they need."
The 60-year study, co-authored with UF graduate student Scott Landes and George Vaillant, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, compared 50 World War II veterans with high combat exposure with 110 veterans without any combat experiences. Results showed that heavy combat exposure at a young age had a detrimental effect on physical health and psychological well-being for about half of the men well into their 80s, she said. The findings were published in the latest issue of the journal Research in Human Development.
Getting treatment not only prevents serious health problems but it can boost the mental well-being of veterans with heavy combat exposure to higher levels than their comrades who saw little battle action, Ardelt said.
The study found that about half of the veterans who experienced a high level of combat showed signs of stress-related growth at mid-life, leading to greater wisdom and well-being in old age than among veterans who witnessed no combat, she said.
Firing at the enemy, killing people and watching others die is enormously stressful, but it can result in personal growth as with survivors of cancer and sexual assault, Ardelt said.
"You can either conclude that God has abandoned you, the world is an unfair place and there is nothing else to do but close yourself off from it all or you can manage to open yourself up and develop compassion for the suffering of others realizing that you have now become a part of it," she said.
Participants were veterans who had been members of Harvard's undergraduate class between 1940 and 1944. In 1946, a year after the war ended, the men filled out an extensive questionnaire and participated in an in-depth interview. They took part in additional in-depth interviews at about 30, 50 and 65, answered follow-up questionnaires every two years, took personality tests and received physical examinations every five years starting at age 45.
The study found that some veterans experienced stress-related growth, the ability to press on with life in a purposeful manner after hardship or adversity. This was measured by whether or not they reached "generativity" in middle age, a life stage identified by psychologist Erik Erikson that is characterized by a desire to mentor the next generation and give back to the community.
Veterans in the high combat group who experienced stress-related growth or reached "generativity" reported significantly less anxiety and depression than other veterans who did not attain this stage of development, either in the high or low combat group, the study found.
In addition, veterans with high combat exposure who experienced this type of growth were less likely than those who did not attain it to abuse alcohol in their early 50s, while the difference in alcohol consumption in the no combat group between veterans who reached "generativity" and those who did not was statistically insignificant, Ardelt said. Among veterans who failed to reach "generativity," those exposed to heavy combat tended to drink significantly larger amounts of alcohol in midlife than veterans with no combat experience, she said.
"In some ways, it was probably easier for World War II veterans because that was a war supported by all the American people and the men were celebrated as liberators when they came home," she said. "Although not as bad as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iran are wars that we just want to forget."
Even though effects from heavy combat could be long lasting, the Ivy League-educated World War II veterans studied were probably much better off than today's veterans, Ardelt said. Their educational background may have let them serve in better positions than the average soldier, she said.
"Because this was a very privileged sample, I would be even more concerned about the people who are coming home now, who are not necessarily privileged and joined the army for economic reasons," she said.
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Credits
Writer
Cathy Keen, ckeen@ufl.edu, 352-392-0186
Source
Monika Ardelt, ardelt@ufl.edu, 352-392-0265 ext. 247
CHICAGO, IL (Oct. 6, 2010) – A new women’s health, whole soy germ-based nutritional supplement containing Natural S-equol reduced the frequency of moderate to severe hot flashes and reduced muscle and joint pain in the first study of its kind among postmenopausal U.S. women, according to peer-reviewed data presented as a poster presentation at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting. Also, the first study to report Natural S-equol contributions to bone health and a study of Natural S-equol safety were presented at NAMS.
“These data from U.S. women ...
Four clinical studies that add to the evidence about the use of a new nutritional supplement containing the whole soy germ-based ingredient Natural S-equol to improve health were presented at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting. These studies include a poster about a first-of-its-kind study in U.S. women that documents the effectiveness of Natural S-equol in reducing the frequency of moderate to severe hot flashes and reducing muscle and joint pain. A second poster reported the first clinical study about Natural S-equol contributions to bone health. ...
SANTA CRUZ, CA-- Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found that a species of lizard in the Mojave Desert lives in family groups and shows patterns of social behavior more commonly associated with mammals and birds. Their investigation of the formation and stability of family groups in desert night lizards (Xantusia vigilis) provides new insights into the evolution of cooperative behavior.
The researchers reported the results of a five-year study of desert night lizards in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological ...
The GOES-13 satellite keeps a vigilant eye on the Atlantic Ocean and eastern U.S. and this morning at 5 a.m. EDT it saw System 97L organize into the seventeenth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean season. The only catch is that it is actually a subtropical depression, so it is currently known as Subtropical Depression 17 (TD17).
A subtropical storm is one where central convection (rapidly rising air that forms thunderstorms) is fairly near the center and it has a warming core in the mid-levels of the troposphere. Subtropical cyclones differ from tropical cyclones ...
WASHINGTON, DC, October 6, 2010 — Despite the popular, state-sponsored ideology that denies the existence of prejudice based on racial or skin color differences in Mexico, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin provides evidence of profound social inequality by skin color.
According to the study, individuals with darker skin tones have less education, have lower status jobs, are more likely to live in poverty, and are less likely to be affluent.
Andrés Villarreal, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center affiliate, ...
Barred for up to ten years from receiving research grants from the Swedish Research Council. There will be serious consequences for the few researchers who are guilty of plagiarism, falsification, or inventing results.
"We need to be able to rely on research findings," says Pär Omling, Director General of the Swedish Research Council.
The Swedish Research Council has made a decision about how it should deal with researchers who are found to have committed research fraud. Any researcher who has been vetted by a panel of experts within the Central Ethical Review Board ...
An immune reaction to dystrophin, the muscle protein that is defective in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, may pose a new challenge to strengthening muscles of patients with this disease, suggests a new study appearing in the October 7, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a hereditary and lethal neuromuscular disease characterized by progressive loss of muscle strength and integrity. Genetic information important for production of a functional dystrophin protein is deleted from the DMD gene of many patients. ...
(PHILADELPHIA) - Thousands of infants each year have exposure to opioids before they are born. Over half of these infants are born with withdrawal symptoms severe enough to require opioid replacement treatment in the nursery. Such treatment is associated with long hospital stays which interferes with maternal/infant bonding. Now, a team of researchers at Thomas Jefferson University has tested a semi-synthetic opioid they say has the potential to improve the treatment of these newborns, which could save hundreds of millions in healthcare costs annually if future tests continue ...
New Rochelle, NY, October 6, 2010 –Climbers of high peaks such as Mount Kilimanjaro are at high risk for Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). Trekkers should not ignore AMS warning signs, which can progress to more serious medical outcomes. Mountain climbers can best minimize their risk for altitude sickness by becoming acclimatized to increased altitudes before an ascent, according to a study in the current issue of High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ham
The ...
New Rochelle, NY, October 6, 2010—The introduction of a new, fully characterized viral vector for use as reference material to help standardize gene therapy protocols in research applications and human clinical trials is described in an article in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article, which is published online ahead of print, is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/hum
The growing popularity in the gene therapy community of using recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors as vehicles ...