Population Density Stress Is Killing Us Now!
- Greeley (Gregg) Miklashek, MD
- September 3, 2019
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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POPULATION DENSITY STRESS IS KILLING US NOW!
An NPG Forum Paper
by Greeley (Gregg) Miklashek, MD
Introduction
NPG is pleased to present the newest addition to our Forum series, Population Density Stress Is Killing Us Now!, by Dr. Greeley Miklashek. Veteran NPG readers will quickly notice that this is a rather untraditional piece for NPG. We fully recognize that but encourage you to keep an open mind and finish the paper before you reach your conclusions.
Most NPG Forum papers present an argument for our cause based on new environmental reports or a recent trend in immigration policy. Dr. Miklashek attacks our common enemy, population size and growth, and the resulting decline in our quality of life, from an uncommon angle – the medical field. In the end, however, his basis for seeking what all NPG members desire – a smaller, truly sustainable U.S. population – completely aligns with our goals.
We are grateful to Dr. Miklashek for cooperating with NPG to allow us to deliver a different and unique perspective on a complex issue. We hope you enjoy reading this new paper and find it useful and relevant.
You may not want to hear it, and when I started medical practice 46 years ago, I certainly did not plan on finding it, but human overpopulation, our dramatically changed physical environment, and our modern life-style choices are causing physiological changes responsible for our top ten killing “diseases of civilization”. I spent 41 years in active medical practice treating 25,000 patients with 1,000,000 prescriptions and talk therapy. My training was in medicine and psychiatry, and the majority of my patients suffered from “anxiety” and “depression”, but I became increasingly aware of the direct association of their psychiatric problems with other general medical conditions.
Eventually, I came to realize that nearly all psychiatric conditions, and most general medical problems as well, could be explained as resulting from our overactive stress response. Our chronically overactive stress response was generating abnormally high blood levels of the adrenal stress hormone cortisol, and research dating back over 100 years indicated a direct connection between these elevated cortisol levels and the comparable diseases of civilization in research animals.
But, then, I discovered a parallel line of animal crowding research dating back to the 1940s, which also implicated elevated cortisol levels with these diseases, social disruptions, aberrant behaviors, and deaths associated with population density stress. As the supporting evidence accumulated, I applied this population density stress model to my clinical medical practice and achieved remarkable results.
Numerous conscious and unconscious environmental stressors (noise, movement, strange faces, competitions on the highways, myriad visual stimuli, stressful media, disrupted families, economic and other worries, etc., etc.) in our daily lives trigger our often unconscious stress response and elevate cortisol levels, as well as other aspects of our overactivated stress response, including over-activation of our sympathetic nervous system. This over-activated stress response results in our feelings and physical symptoms of “anxiety” and eventually “depression”. I knew that properly administered antianxiety and antidepressant medications relieved these symptoms and signs of anxiety and depression by temporarily restoring stress depleted neurotransmitter levels in our brains, once I learned how to prescribe them effectively and often in a manner other than recommended by the drug companies marketing these agents.
Numerous peer reviewed scientific papers demonstrate the lowering of cortisol levels as a result of these medications, as well as other nonmedication “relaxation” modalities: massage, meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi, music, and exercise. Both my patients and myself could see this effect first hand and their lowered cortisol blood levels were proof positive. Chronic stress was causing their anxiety and depression, and cortisol lowering medications were restoring them to normal mood and arousal levels, just as the long-established relaxation modalities were known to do. Unfortunately, the nonmedication relaxation therapies required burdensome constant practice and repetition, and the constant bombardment of environmental stressors required near continuous use. But what about their other general medical problems?
Extensive medical scientific literature dating back to the beginning of the 20th century had demonstrated the connection between our overactive stress response and elevated cortisol levels with many diseases: hyperthyroidism (Graves’ disease), atherosclerosis and heart disease, obesity and diabetes, cancers, immune system suppression and increased risk of infection, high blood pressure, kidney disease, peptic ulcers, heart attack and stroke, etc.: “the diseases of civilization”…
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