A new analysis of data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) finds statistical associations between various health factors and PTSD. The study found that people who eat two or three sources of fiber per day are less likely to experience episodes of PTSD than those eating less fiber.
Lead author Karen Davison, director of the Nutrition Informatics Research Group and health science program faculty member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, British Columbia, suggests a reason for this finding: “It is possible that optimal levels of dietary fiber have some type of mental health-related protective effect.” Davison says that this may have to do with short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which originate in the gut. “SCFA molecules can communicate with cells and may affect brain function,” she explains.
When they looked at nondietary factors, the researchers found a strong association between poverty and PTSD. Of the individuals with an annual household income below $20,000 Canadian, 1 in 7 experienced the disorder. Senior author Prof. Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging and professor at the U of T, says that this is one of those links in which the cause and effect are unclear. “Unfortunately, we do not know whether PTSD symptoms undermined an individual’s ability to work, which resulted in poverty, or whether the stress associated with poverty exacerbated PTSD symptoms in respondents,” she notes.
In addition, the results showed that 6.9% of women and 3.9% of men had PTSD, meaning that it affected women nearly twice as often as men. Among the women, 8.8% of those who were divorced or widowed had PTSD compared with 4.4% of currently married women or women with a common-law partner. The study’s analysis supports previous research showing that men and women are more likely to experience PTSD at certain times in their life. Men are most likely to have PTSD in their early 40s, while women most often experience it in their early 50s.
Source: Medical News Today