Stress and illness

Recently several people close to me have become ill as a result of stress. Depending on the person, the illness has taken the form of skin rashes, sore joints, swollen eyelids, and the flu. Each of these people have been in long-term stressful situations. Even though the relationship between stress and illness is common knowledge, it seem that people who get sick don't usually make the connection. I think many--if not most--illnesses are stress-related.

When stressed your body releases cortisol and other hormones that cause a complicated cascade of bio-chemical events that suppress your immune system. In the words of one scientist, “the immune cells are being bathed in molecules which are essentially telling them to stop fighting.” Normally cortisol regulates inflammation—lowering or raising inflammatory responses depending on the circumstances. But if you are undergoing a prolonged stressful event, your immune cells lose their ability to respond to the signals that regulate inflammation. Consequently, they produce levels of inflammation that promotes disease.

As you’ve probably heard, cortisol is the “fight or flight” hormone. It surges when you’re in potentially harmful situations and promotes short-term inflammation to fight infection. After the onslaught, all returns to normal. Your body can deal with the kinds of short-term stressful situations that come and go. After all, you don’t fall ill after being stuck in traffic or rushing to meet a deadline. It’s the long-term or chronic stress that gets you.

Recent research has shown that genes are also involved in suppressing your immune system. In this case, scientists study people with long-term psycho-social stress, such as loneliness or facing the death of a loved one. Chronic stress affects whole networks of immune-related genes, such that genes that promote inflammation are over-expressed and those that are anti-inflammatory and anti-viral are suppressed. As reported in The Scientist Magazine, “Social stress seems to reach deep into cellular control centers to shape key aspects of the immune system—and, as a result, can impair one’s ability to avoid or fight off disease and psychiatric disorders.”

Next week: Your microbiome: it's who you are

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