Blast Waves May Partially Explain Suicide Tragedy Befalling U.S. Military, Vets
PUBLISHED JUNE 11, 2023
@ 12:23 PM
By Frank Larkin
A far-reaching study by Navy researchers has found that exposure to munitions blast waves from combat and training may be causing brain injuries the aggregation of which is resulting serious and often deadly ailments such as depression, PTSD and suicide.
Years of prior research with animals has already documented an association between exposure to pressure waves from munitions blasts, known as overpressure, and behaviors mimicking depression. But the new findings are particularly important because they validate that the same phenomenon is occurring in U.S. military members, echoing what some advocates for veterans have been saying all along as suicide rates have dramatically climbed.
“The current research suggests a similar pattern in humans, which may also inform our understanding of the possible associations between overpressure and suicide that has been posited elsewhere,” researchers from the Naval Health Research Center found.
In another key finding, the Navy research “is the first to document an association between overpressure exposure and self-reported diagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome specifically, though again the mechanism for this effect is still unclear.”
https://defenseopinion.com/blast-waves-may-partially-explain-suicide-tragedy-befalling-u-s-military-vets/407/
