Does stress actually make us feel sick?

Washington: Whether it`s getting a cold during exam time or feeling run-down after a big meeting, we`ve all experienced feeling sick following a particularly stressful time at work or school. Is this merely coincidence, or is it possible that stress can actually make us sick? Janice K Kiecolt-Glaser, psychologist from the Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCM), reviews research into how stress can wreak havoc on our bodies and offers suggestions.

The field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI) investigates how stress and negative emotions (such as depression and anxiety) affect our health. Over the past 30 years, researchers have uncovered a number of ways that stress adversely affects our health, and specifically, how stress can damage our immune system. Numerous studies have shown that stressed individuals show weaker immune responses to vaccines, and as Kiecolt-Glaser observes: "The evidence that stress and distress impair vaccine responses has obvious public health relevance because infectious diseases can be so deadly." Stress and depression have been shown to increase the risk of getting infections and also result in delayed wound healing. Inflammation is the body`s way of removing harmful stimuli and also starts the process of healing, via release of a variety of chemicals. However, too much inflammation can be damaging and has been implicated in the development of many age-related diseases, including Alzheimer`s and Parkinson`s, arthritis, and Type II diabetes. Kiecolt-Glaser suggests that to most effectively tackle the questions raised by recent PNI research, cross-discipline training needs to be emphasised for students. Psychology students who gain a strong foundation in areas such as biology and physiology will be able to enter into powerful collaborations with scientists conducting immunology research. Kiecolt-Glaser concludes that the questions answered by these collaborations will advance PNI as well as psychology in general, says an OSUCM release. These findings appeared in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. IANS