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Novosti News

11.3.2015. 8:20
Holokaust
 

Trauma can be inherited: Why the descendants of Holocaust survivors suffer altered stress hormones

Trauma se može naslijediti: Zašto potomci osoba koje su preživjele Holokaust pate od promjene hormona stresa


Research suggests parents' past experiences may hamper their offspring's ability to recover from emotional injury  (Tori Rodriguez) This article was originally published by Scientific American.



A person’s experience as a child or teenager can have a profound impact on their future children’s lives, new work is showing. Rachel Yehuda, a researcher in the growing field of epigenetics and the intergenerational effects of trauma, and her colleagues have long studied mass trauma survivors and their offspring. Their latest results reveal that descendants of people who survived the Holocaust have different stress hormone profiles than their peers, perhaps predisposing them to anxiety disorders.



Novi radovi su pokazali da osobno iskustvo u vrijeme djetinjstva ili mladosti može imati duboke posljedice na život buduće djece. Rahel Yehuda, istraživač u novom području epigenetike i intergeneracijskom djelovanju traume, zajedno sa suradnicima,  je dugo istraživala masovne traume kod preživjelih i njihovih potomaka. Njihovi posljednji rezultati su pokazali da potomci osoba koje su preživjele Holokaust imaju različite hormone stresa nego njihovi vršnjaci, što možda stvara predispoziciju za poremećaje anksioznosti.


Tim Yehude  iz   Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y.,  su najprije ustanovili da oni koji su preživjeli Holokaust imaju promijenjen nivo stresnih ho,mona u odnosu na druge  Židove.  Preživjeli imaju niži nivo hormona cortisola koji pomaže da se tijelo vrati u normalu nakon traume. Oni koji boluju od posttraumatskog poremećaja  (PTSD) imaju još niži nivo tog hormona. Nije potpuno jasno zašto preživjeli stvaraju manje cortisola- Yehuda su pronašli manje enzima koji utječu na korticol.


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The adaptation makes sense: reducing enzyme activity keeps more free cortisol in the body, which allows the liver and kidneys to maximize stores of glucose and metabolic fuels—an optimal response to prolonged starvation and other threats. The younger the survivors were during World War II, the less of the enzyme they have as adults. This finding echoes the results of many other human epigenetic studies that show that the effects of certain experiences during childhood and adolescence are especially enduring in individuals and sometimes even across generations (right).


Most recently, a new study looked at the descendants of the Holocaust survivors. Like their parents, many have low levels of cortisol, particularly if their mothers had PTSD. Yet unlike their parents, they have higher than normal levels of the cortisol-busting enzyme. Yehuda and her colleagues theorize that this adaptation happened in utero. The enzyme is usually present in high levels in the placenta to protect the fetus from the mother’s circulating cortisol. If pregnant survivors had low levels of the enzyme in the placenta, a greater amount of cortisol could make its way to the fetus, which would then develop high levels of the enzyme to protect itself.