Explosive Training Toughens Soldiers—but Secretly Puts Their Insides Under Siege
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
U.S. military personnel have long been subjected to traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to consistent exposure to low-level explosions.
Now, a new study is linking TBI to problems with intestinal permeability—also known as leaky gut—which can lead to serious, life-threatening conditions such as sepsis.
The more scientists can understand this unintuitive correlation between brain health and intestine health, the more likely symptoms can be treated—or, better yet, averted entirely.
The words “boot camp” are pretty much synonymous with some of the most intense physical training a human body can endure. But military preparedness drills do more than just bulk up biceps—they can also cause traumatic brain injury (TBI). These drills often involve training with explosives, and even when recruits and trainers are at a declared “safe” distance, these explosions can wreak havoc on the brain. They can also wreak havoc on another unlikely part of the body: the gut.
This strange bodily connection isn’t a new one. Previous research in 2009 uncovered the “neuro-enteric (intestinal) axis,” and a study back in 2017 by the University of Maryland School of Medicine found a “two-way link” between TBI and the lower intestine—possibly caused by enteric glial cells, which are similar to other cells found in the brain. Brain damage allowed permeability of the gut, which allowed harmful microbes to migrate from the intestine and cause life-threatening illnesses such as sepsis. This discovery helped explain why TBI patients were also 2.5 times more likely to die of a digestive problem.
Now, scientists at James J Peter VA Medical Center in the Bronx have analyzed this biological phenomenon in real-time by conducting a small study of 30 military trainees—specifically, “breachers,” who learn to forcibly enter buildings using explosives. By recording both pre- and post-blast training, as well as next-day follow-up data, the team tracked the effects of low-level explosions on brain health and intestinal permeability (IP), and found a positive correlation between TBI and IP for the first time. The results of the study were published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
“The observed symptom profile was consistent with mild traumatic brain injury and was further associated with changes in bacterial translocation and intestinal permeability, suggesting that IP may be linked to a decrease in cognitive functioning,” the paper reads. “These preliminary findings show for the first time within real-world military operational settings that exposure to blast can contribute to IP.”
In the military, even if you’re not trained to be a “breacher,” explosions are a more-than-common occurrence. And while controversy surrounding brain injuries has been a fixture in the sports world, the same level of coverage hasn’t really been applied to military injuries—but that’s quickly changing.
An extensive New York Times investigation in November of 2023 exhaustively detailed the symptoms of TBI by military personnel who participated in the relentless artillery bombardment of ISIS in 2016 and 2017. Of course, TBI injuries are not confined to only this particular campaign, and in the history of the U.S. armed forces, these injuries likely date back to when the first musket fired at Lexington and Concord.
A month after the report, the Pentagon emphasized its newly created Brain Health Initiative focused on studying the effects of “ blast overpressure.” And in February, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing a military-related TBI, where officials listened to moving testimony by veterans struggling with brain injuries.
The timely arrival of this study reminds policy makers and military leaders that damage to the brain doesn’t only affect one organ—it can also spell doom for a soldier’s gut as well.
You Might Also Like
