The Natural Connection

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Listen up. This story is true. It could happen to you. Maybe it already has. 

Last Thursday started out like any other day. Awake at dawn when the Barred Owls start chattering in the woods (Out here in the Swamp we have owls, rather than roosters.) Walk the dog, feed the cats, start the coffee, turn on the computer to check the e-mail. What happened next was something straight out of cyber-comic hell. 

15,323 e-mails popped up to greet me. At first I rubbed my eyes, certain that I was hallucinating from the early morning Starbucks, but it was a true nightmare. While I slept, safe in my bed, some demented mind had sent me 15,323 e-mail messages designed to entice me to purchase a cream to enlarge a body part that I don’t even possess. 

Electronic communication is both a blessing and a curse. E-Mail allows us to communicate easily with family, friends, and business associates without the barrier of time or distance. But it can also enable any sleaze-ball who puts their mind to it to worm their sales pitch into the same e-mailbox that we reserve for e-greeting cards to Great Aunt Edna, who by the way, spends most of her day logged on trying to win Internet sweepstakes. Without some warning, she could be in for a big surprise on Bad E-mail Day. 

Such a deluge of useless information placed a definite stress on my computer’s memory. Simple programs that are usually effortless performed slogged along slowly and nearly crashed. I had to unplug things for a few days until my web-server technicians out in Portland, Oregon could get into my computer’s “brain”, and clean things up.  

Artificial intelligence is actually no more fickle than the real thing. When subjected to chronic and intense stress, our God-given hard drive, our brain, also has trouble processing information, or retaining memory. (Who hasn’t had the experience of losing their car keys on the very day that their Do List reached the floor?) 

A small structure deep in our brain, called the hippocampus, has in recent years been identified as the storehouse of memory. The hippocampus, in turn, “talks” to other parts of the body, chiefly the pituitary and adrenal glands, in the form of chemical messages in order to process and encode memory correctly. Without a healthy hippocampus, retrieval of stored information is virtually impossible. 

The hippocampus is also essential to a number of other brain functions, such as immunity and surprisingly, weight control. Through what is called the “satiety center”, the hippocampus gives the body the message that enough food has been put in the stomach, and it’s OK to leave the buffet line. 

Previous studies on animals have shown that animals exposed to chronic stress had memory deficits and forgot how to do simple tasks. On autopsy, their hippocampus was shrunken and small. It was only recently that with the advent of modern imaging techniques, such as MRI, that a similar process could be identified in humans. 

Chronic stress is known to cause death of brain cells in humans, but especially so in the hippocampus. Numerous studies now confirm that humans also suffer from atrophy, or shrinkage, of their memory center in the hippocampus when exposed to situations of overwhelming or chronic stress. MRI scans show that patients with long-standing depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, early childhood abuse, and some patients with Alzheimer’s Disease suffer this sort of brain damage. As would be expected, their memory is also impaired. 

Besides experiencing memory problems, patients suffering from chronic stress situations seem to be more prone to obesity. The chemical messages from the adrenal glands to the hippocampus and the pituitary gland are called glucocorticoids, and they are similar to the drug cortisone. People who are exposed to chronic cortisone therapy are known to suffer from obesity, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and chronic infections. Endogenous glucocorticoids, produced in your body by your adrenal glands and sent to the brain during times of stress affect your body in the same way. 

It is apparent to anyone who carefully looks at the scientific data, that one of the major challenges of this century is to find ways to cope with the increasing amount of stress in our daily lives. Stress can make us sick. Stress can shrink our brains—literally cause us to “lose our minds”.  

Each one of us must take a hard look at the stresses in our lives, and decide which ones are worth the risk of potential death or brain damage. When faced with 15,323 e-mails, I can simply unplug. But the next time a telemarketer calls me at supper time, I think I will just get his e-mail address, and hit the “Forward Message” button. 

To learn more about the effects of stress on memory, write to The Natural Connection, c/o Pauline Bellecci MD, PO Box 777, Waycross, GA 31502 or visit our on-line Patient Education Library at www.swampdocs.com 

©2000-2003 Pauline M. Bellecci, MD