Stress free combat ?

Some people may be born to perform with grace under pressure but could drugs and steroids create stress resistant people ? New studies are showing substances and steroids that appear in high levels in people that are able to remain calm under stress.The goal of a recent study was to find and identify specific drugs and steroids that would 'protect' people from high levels of stress.Thinking of the worst here,one can imagine a combat application for a stress reduction drug or steroid . Maybe as easily a benign use for blocking stress responses is in the works ..or both. Just flow with the neuropeptide as they say.The study notes treatment for stress related memories,PTSD as an application .But some researchers are finding risk of suffering post-traumatic stress disorder was influenced by their childhood. Stephanie Bird, an ethics consultant, said that medicating people to dampen their stress reactions raised serious issues. "We clearly don't want to create a population of people who act without thinking," she said. Sensible ethics really.

The research has led to a test that can predict which people will respond well in a stressful situation and those who are more likely to panic.
In a study,Deane Aikins, a psychiatrist at Yale University, took blood samples from soldiers before and after they took part in survival training exercises designed to test their skills at evading capture and enduring interrogation. In the majority of men, levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, increased sharply during the exercise.
But Aikins found a few men whose stress levels hardly changed during the exercise. They performed best because they were able to stay calm, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago yesterday.
"Certain people are cooler under pressure and they perform very, very well during these periods of time," Aikins said.Further tests revealed the men who coped best with stress had higher levels of a substance called neuropeptide Y, which reduces levels of cortisol in the body and blocks feelings of stress.
Aikins said his next goal was to identify mental exercises or drugs, such as the steroid DHEA, that could protect people from high levels of stress. If that can be done, it might reduce levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects between 15% and 20% of active servicemen and women.The researchers now hope to find out how to help soldiers that aren’t as cool under stress.Aikins said his team is now looking into whether giving other soldiers a dose of this stress-dampening neuropeptide might help people fare better in combat situations.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1639999/study_compares_stress_levels_in_soldiers/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/16/coping-with-stress