Natural Help for PTSD

is a severe psychiatric disorder that brings intense suffering. But there is little conventional medicine can do. That may not be true of nature.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by severe trauma. It severely impacts quality of life by causing terrible memories and dreams, bad sleep, dissociative reactions, avoidance, fear and mood and cognitive disturbances.

Pharmaceutical treatments have proven to be only moderately effective and come with high dropout rates. Nature might offer a more promising treatment.

Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) is naturally made in your body. It has strong immune and antidepressant effects, and it is powerfully anti-inflammatory, pain relieving and neuroprotective. PEA is a cannabinoid-like compound that has no psychotropic effects. There is early evidence that the endocannabinoid system plays a key role in PTSD. So, researchers set out to to see if PEA could help people with PTSD.

The current gold standard treatment for PTSD is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This 18 month study tested PEA alone and put CBT alone up against CBT plus PEA. The results were very exciting.

60 people with PTSD were divided into 4 groups: one got a placebo, one got PEA, one got CBT + PEA, and one got CBT + placebo.

PEA dramatically outperformed placebo. While the placebo had barely any effect, reducing PTSD symptoms only from 54.7 to 52.3, the PEA reduced symptoms from 64.3 to 22.

And while CBT reduce PTSD symptoms from 61.3 to 45.5, adding PEA enhanced the improvement, dropping symptom scores from 67.3 to 20.

These results show that PEA had a direct effect on PTSD symptoms alone and that adding it to CBT improved the results of therapy.

The study also evaluated anxiety. The results were the same. The placebo group had only slight improvement, from 43.5 to 40.9 on the HAM-A scale; the PEA group improved from 47.7 go 21. And while CBT improved anxiety scores from 46.9 to 31.5, adding PEA boosted the effect, improving scores from49.6 to 19.4.

These results are highly significant, and PEA accomplishes them with an impressive safety profile.

This important study offers the hope to people with PTSD that PEA offers a very safe and effective treatment that partners very well with cognitive behavioural therapy.

Journal of Psychiatric Research. January 2026;192:439-50.

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The Natural Path is intended for educational purposes only and is in no way intended for self-diagnosis or self-treatment. For health problems, consult a qualified health practitioner for a comprehensive program.

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