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General: Stress, Immunity, and Disease: the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) Axis in DIABETES and BREAST CANCER

General Requirement (Nursing Elective) -- CEBroker Course Tracking No. 20-174924

Stress, Immunity, and Disease:

the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis

DIABETES and BREAST CANCER

Online Continuing Education Course (4 CEUs) - $25.00

The Stress Circuit How does the human body, which evolved over hundreds of millennia to live on Earth before humanity devised civilization, react to chronic stress? The HPA-Axis was designed to move the body out of danger by sudden and sustained exertion, but today we sit through danger perceived by the mind. In response to stress, the limbic system turns off the digestion to rush blood nutrients to the long muscles; the pituitary stimulates the adrenals to release fight and flight hormones; the amygdala evaluates the danger from past emotional experience -- but we do not move. And the danger is from other members of our own species and the way we share our living space and resources -- so it is constant. Enter the exciting field of discoveries of systems medicine and how the brain affects our health and how our social experience affects our brain.

Course Outline and Table of Contents

Part I: Stress System Malfunction Causes Breakdown in Health
Introduction: Background……………………………………….……… 3
      “Researchers Detect Variations in DNA That Underlie Seven Common
        Diseases” ...5
A. Physiology of the Stress System—the HPA-axis ..………….................. 7
Diagram 1, The Stress Circuit [“Taming Stress,” Robert Sapolsky]
B. Depression and the immune system ........................................................ 11
C. The immune system and molecular signaling – Dibetes ...... 14
D. The development of cancer cells ................................................. 18
             Illustration by Pam Curry, “Cancer Growth and Metastasis” ....... 21
Part II: Epigenetics: Where Sociobiology meets Psychoneuroimmunology ..... 23
Meditation, Inflammation and Consternation:
Applying Buddhist Wisdom to Activity in Health-Relevant Danger Pathways, Charles L. Raison, MD, Assistant Professor and Clinical Director, Mind-Body Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA
Inflammation as a Link Between Stress, Depression and Illness .......................... 29
Positive Social Connectivity Associated with Reduced Inflammation .................. 30
The Strategy: Compassion Meditation Protocol
Neuroendocrine and Behavioral Responses to Psychosocial Stress .................. 31
For Further Study: Current Research in Breast Cancer .………………………… 32
Study guide to Course Objectives …………………………………………….…… 36

Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 38

Study Guide
STRESS, IMMUNITY, and DISEASE:
THE BODY-MIND CONNECTION OF THE HPA AXIS

With Application to:

DIABETES and BREAST CANCER
Please NOTE that PTSD is covered in "Hard Times: Sociobiology of Anger and Stress" -- the course fulfills the Domestic Violence CE requirement.

I.                     Knowledge ~ recognize facts, recall information, observations, and definitions

1. to learn current research on the brain and on degenerative disease mechanisms
consequent to imbalance in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, also known as “The Stress Circuit:.”

A. Emotions and Memory in the Brain

B . Physiology of the Stress System
                                              Current Research: the HPA axis
                                              Diagram 1, The Stress Circuit

II. Comprehension ~ demonstrate sufficient understanding to organize and arrange the material mentally, selecting the facts most pertinent to answering the question. Rephrase, describe, compare, contrast, explain.

1. to explain how Stress System Malfunction Causes Breakdown in Health as a general rule
2. to understand how the mind-body connection of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis
affects health in the general population, as well as the differences due to gender and the reproductive system requirements

III. Application ~ reach an answer to a problem by applying a rule or process in the information learned. Solve, classify, choose, use. Apply knowledge to determine correct answer.

to consider the patient’s life situation and the vulnerability of the body systems that result in degenerative disease as stress weakens the immune system or may induce auto-immune dysfunction
      2.   to apply knowledge of the Stress Circuit dysfunction to the Body-Mind Connection
             in Diabetes and Breast Cancer

IV. Analysis ~ think critically and in depth by using cognitive processes: Identify, draw conclusions, why, determine, support. Go beyond reliance on material instructed.
~ identify motives, reasons, causes for a specific occurrence
                                                ~ in order to reach a conclusion, inference, or generalization
                                                ~ to find evidence to support or refute a premise

Diagram 2, Cancer and metastasis

Case study: Diabetes and Stress research
Current Research: Stress-related Disorders

The mechanism for by-passing judgment by the pre-frontal lobes

V. Synthesis ~ perform “higher order” original and creative thinking. Application questions require learner to solve problems; synthesis allows a variety of creative answers. Thorough understanding or mastery of the material is needed.

Current Research: Stress and Breast Cancer

VI. Evaluation ~ judge the merit of an idea or solution to a problem. Use of criteria: objective standards or personal set of values. Differing standards result in different answers. Decide, compare, assess, argue for your evaluation or defend.

For Further Study: Section at appropriate end of topic that lists active links to On-line Resources from the National Institutes for Health, Cleveland Clinic, and other research institutes of high repute

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