Traumatic Brain Injury - Hormonal Dysfunction Syndrome Finally Comes Into Focus For The NFL And Veterans Of Two Wars

ENCINO, Calif., Jan. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 7 years ago, Dr. Mark L. Gordon began his crusade promoting the relationship between head trauma and the progressive loss of life-promoting hormones. Dr. Gordon began lecturing to physicians at national and international medical conferences, presenting thousands of compelling studies about the causes and effects of traumatic brain injury on quality-of-life issues.       

Dr. Gordon, working with professional boxers, mixed martial artists, retired football players, motocross racers, and now veterans suffering with "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," has found the majority are suffering with one or more hormonal insufficiency or deficiencies noting that each had experienced at least a minimal traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

In 2006, after giving a lecture on mTBI, Dr. Gordon was approached by ESPN: Outside the Lines to provide the framework for a program looking at Sports and TBI. On January 21, 2007, Dr. Dan Kelly, a neurosurgeon and expert on TBI, and Dr. Mark Gordon provided the science and clinical aspects of hormonal dysfunction arising out of TBI.

A number of well-known sports celebrities, each with documented TBI and under Dr. Gordon's care, shared their experiences before and after hormone replenishment. 

Whether the trauma was mild, moderate, or severe it still altered the brain's ability to regulate the patient's hormones leading to increased risk of heart attack, stroke, emotional instability, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, mood swings, memory loss, fatigue, confusion, amnesia, poor cognition, learning disabilities, decreased communication skills, poor healing, frequent infections, poor fracture healing, poor skin quality, increased body fat, decreased muscle strength and size, infertility, and loss of sex drive.

Also in 2007, Dr. Gordon's book The Clinical Application of Interventional Endocrinology was published, offering medical documentation to support the causes, clinical findings, laboratory testing, specific hormone replacement strategies, and the outcomes for Traumatic Brain Injury associated with hormonal dysfunction.

Recently, Dr. Gordon was featured on the cover of Life Extension Magazine ( Jan. 2012) with an interview article on "Using Hormones to Heal Traumatic Brain Injury." In this piece, Dr. Gordon shares his views on how the medical community is presently addressing patients with TBI and presents one of many cases where a young man was being treated with three anti-depressants that did not control his depression. When he was found to be significantly deficient in one of the major hormones, replacement allowed him to be weaned off his traditional medication by his psychiatrist (within 6 months). Two years after the fact, he is living a quality of life that was previously unobtainable.   

This paradigm shift from treating hormonally deficient individuals experiencing both cognitive and behavioral problems with medications that mask the symptoms to a treatment protocol that focuses on replenishing the missing hormone(s) is starting to catch on. The relationship between behavior and hormones is indelibly connected, answering why many of the traditional medications fail.