Thanks to CTenaLouise for the thread titled "Neurogenesis" and the article at http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/02...p?page=all&p=y

This is the central part of what Anne Frobert and I have been working on for the last year. There is much more, but this is the heart and if you let this article about the research of Elizabeth Gould sink in you will begin to understand the cause(s) of our PD and most importantly, things we can do about it.

In a nutshell, although there are other causes that contribute, PD is a stress-induced illness. Weird stress response is not a symptom but a cause, the primary cause, in fact. And while the damage undeniably involves the nervous system, the causes are the domain of not the neurologist but the endocrinologist. And to make matters even worse, before the problem lands in the camp of neurology, it has to pass through the territory of the immunologist as well. And that is why PD has stymied science for so long. It lies at the juncture of several disciplines whose members do not communicate with one another.

Stress induces a cascade of events whose result is an increase in the level of cortisol in our system. In a normal person cortisol levels rise to a peak in the early morning and drop throughout the day. In a PWP the pattern is disrupted - the morning peak is eliminated and levels "flat line" through the day BUT at an elevated level. We have chronic high cortisol. We are in a perpetual fight or flight response. A lifetime of that takes a toll.

It can begin in the womb as the result of bacterial toxins or maternal stress hormones. It can result from stressful childhoods. It can even result from a young man's experience in a war zone because the brain remains plastic until the late teens at least.

Some of you may remember from the old BT forum that when we polled ourselves that eighty percent of us had unusually stressful childhoods. Chronic stress and a plastic brain is a dangerous combination.

As a species we are designed for acute stress. Sudden and short. We have a much harder time with chronic stress. Constant. Always there. Our fight or flight gets stuck in the on position.

You remember Daffy and I jousting about the role of soot from the Industrial Revolution in PD. I do count soot as a factor. But there was something else that came with the IR. The nature of stress changed from predominantly acute to predominantly chronic. The clock took over our lives. We had a boss looking over our shoulders. Noise. Pollution.

That kind of stress takes a toll not only on ourselves but on our offspring as well. Stress accumulates over generations! The phenomenon is called "hormonal programming." Your mom is stressed out, you are more so, and your child even more so. Carry that out over the generations and the trend is greater and greater problems.

If this is all true, then there are new avenues open to us. Anything that relaxes us is a move in the right direction. Shed the high stress job. Take up fishing. Meditate. Yoga. Tai chi. Music. Whatever works.

Then look for the things that aid repair. But if we don't deal with our stress response, then nothing works.

Forgive the Rev for preaching, but if I didn't care about you I'd just go fishing.