Summary: The Body's Response To Prolonged Stress

Another interesting part of this book, talks about the decreased immune response during times of stress. Hans Selye, one of the godfathers of stress physiology, discovered the first evidence of stress-induced immunosuppression back in the 1930s. Selye learned that the same glucocorticoids that are responsible for sympathetic response, was also a large contributor in immune system suppression. Glucocorticoids stop the formation of lymphocytes as well as inhibit the release of interleukins and interferons which make already circulating lymphocytes less responsive to infections. Sapolsky hypothesized why evolution would create this process from happening. He wanted to know why

Humans frequently turn on the stress response that was intended to assist our survival in reaction to the everyday challenges we face. Professor Michael Marmot conducted a study in England of 28,000 people’s health over a course of 40 years. Each person was a British

Stress Is the body’s way of responding to the hectic lives most of us live, whether good or bad. The body releases chemicals into the bloodstream, which creates a rush of energy and strength If an individual is feeling stressed. This energy can prove useful if an individual is in physical danger. Because it enables a person’s survival instinct kicks in; it is often described as ‘fight or flight.’ In addition, stress can also have a negative effect on the body, for example: suffering from stress and leaving it unchecked can contribute to health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

Stress has a huge impact on the immune system. The immune system is interconnected. For example the immune, nervous, and endocrine system is linked through specialized communication pathways involving hormones, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and immune cell productions. Stress reactions can directly affect the various response systems and how they handle the neuroendocrine-products. This stress reaction directly affects the hypothalamus and pituitary peptides through the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Some of these stressors might be life events, anxiety, and excitements.

The biological purpose of the stress response is to help the body to survive either some sort of attack or a serious illness like a stroke or heart attack. During the stress response glucocorticoids divert the bodies energy to the areas necessary for survival like the muscles and the brain and it shuts down the areas that are not necessary for survival like the digestive and immune systems (Sopolsky, 2009). Chronic Stress in this context, is to experience this physical effect on regular or long term basis. This has become a public health issue for humans because we experience this chronic biological response on a too frequent a basis for psychological reasons (Stress, 2008).

The video “Stress Portrait of a Killer” was enlightening. The correlation between each individual’s placement in the hierarchy and their level of stress was not surprising. In fact, it made a great deal of sense. When one is on the lower end of the spectrum, it is a reasonable to anticipate higher levels of stress than when one is at the higher end. The latter, has more control over what is happening in their lives which in turn eliminates that stress. What I found most interesting, is that stress lowers the body’s immunity. I had no idea that the brain cuts non-essential systems like the immune system when stress is present. I found this fact fascinating and rather concerning. For as long as I can remember, I have been very susceptible to

Outline and evaluate research into the relationship between the immune system and stress related illness

The agents can be bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. Therefore, the body has two types of cells that help us fight infectious agents which are Lymphocytes and monocytes. These are known as white blood cells and the two types are T cell and B cells. So basically, these two cells fight to help the body fight off any infectious agent invaders. Therefore, these cells are extremely important for our bodies protect us. But how does this relate to stress well the chapter shows a logical explanation where it basically states that stress may be inhibiting the immune functions. But that is not the case the immune system is actually enhanced. The problem is with stress we create glucocorticoids, which in fact kills lymphocytes. This is what helps destroy the infectious bacteria, therefore with it being destroyed it will destroy the immune system. In relations to what we have learned in class was how high levels of Glucocorticoids impact the body in a negative way. Therefore, having high levels of Glucocorticoids for an extended of time signifies that one is highly stressed impacting many things such as the immune system in this

Viewed from an evolutionary standpoint, in early times stress caused the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system resulting in an outpouring of the hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and glucocorticoids that were essential to the life-preserving fight or flight reactions of primitive man (Anthony 1988). However, the nature of stress for the individual today is different. It is only occasionally and unexpectedly that one is confronted with overwhelming, life-threatening stresses. Present stresses arise from everyday stresses of work, finances and school. The problem is that the body still continues to respond in the same fashion as primitive times. This makes the large release of hormones very harmful. They can cause an increase in blood pressure, damage muscle tissue, lead to infertility, inhibit growth, damage the hippocampus and suppress the immune system (Carlson 1994). It is therefore, important that individuals learn to control the stresses in their lives. The more detrimental coping behaviors will cause a larger change

The human body has a built in stress response system that usually self regulates. When a threat is perceived the body deploys white blood cells to the area of the body that is under attack (Segerstrom & Miller, 2006). Because of this, less important cellular activities are reduced and the immune system is left vulnerable. When the body perceives a threat there are three phases it goes through. (Story, 2012). The first is the alarm stage, in which the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated and in response deploys the release of

The main aim of the immune system is to limit and dispose any harmful waste products as well as evacuating the damaged tissues so that the body can begin healing. The body’s self-protective reaction comprises of variations in the blood stream to take in an increased discharge of fluids from the veins together with an increase of plasma, T-lymphocyte cells, proteins and phagocytes to enter the tissue so as to heal the damaged area as well as fighting off bacteria and viruses. The T and B cells are the most important cellular elements of the adaptive immune response. When a person is stressed, the ability of the immune system to attack antigens is usually reduced and one becomes more vulnerable to infections. T and B cells may play a significant neuroprotective role in both stress and inflammation. Through their

Stress generates autonomic and endocrine responses that promote physiological coping (Chrousos and Gold, 1992; Myers et al., 2013). Stress responses are initiated in part by brainstem noradrenergic (NE) neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract (A2 region), as depletion of A2 NE neurons reduces pressor responses to psychosocial stressors (Duale et al., 2007; Daubert et al., 2012). Cardioavascular stress responses are likely mediated by rich A2 projections to central cardioregulatory circuits, including the ventrolateral medulla (Ross et al., 1985), preautonomic subdivisions of hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and/or the anteroventral subdivisions of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) (Ricardo and Koh, 1978; Swanson and Sawchenko, 1982; Riche et al., 1990). The A2 region also sends direct projections to medial parvocellular corticotrophin-relasing hormone (CRH) (Sawchenko and Swanson, 1982) neurons, which are responsible for activation of hypothalamo-pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis responses (Plotsky et al.,

When someone is stressed - out they feel the strain and pressure . Being stressed is normal , but sometimes it gets out of hand . Stress can respond to our body to protect it , which can cause bad things , and food sometimes helps . Be healthy and try not to get as stressed out .

Central stress circuitry includes hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). There also exist a negative feedback loop between HPA axis and the immune system. Signaling is mediated by corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH), glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoid and their related receptors (Turnbull and Rivier, 1999). There also exists a negative feedback loop via glucocorticoid receptors and melanocorticoid receptors within the hippocampus (Turnbull and Rivier, 1999; Kellendonk et al., 2002). Dysregulation of HPA axis in rodents (Landgraf and Wigger, 2002; Jakovcecski et al., 2011) and in humans (Coryell et al., 2006) leads to anxiety and depression like symptoms respectively. Whereas, correction of the HPA axis with medications have shown improvement in depression (Wilkinson and Goodyer, 2011). Increase in levels of IL-1, TNF–α and increased mortality following immune challenge with LPS (Perretti et al., 1993; Goujon et al., 1996) have been reported in adrenalectomized rodents. The stress response in adrenalectomized rodents is reversible with dexamethasone treatment (Butler et al., 1989).

Psychological and physical well-being and the overall quality of life are under a constant threat of stress and thus, psychological and medical sciences have long been concerned with studying stress response. Cox (1979) claimed that because of the poor understanding and defining it, the concept of stress tends to be rather elusive. The term, “stress”, commonly describes any physchological or physical alteration that deranges the organism’s homeostasis (or balance). This essay reviews some of the biological factors involved in stress and it has been organized in the following way. The paper begins by briefly introducing the concept of stress. It will then go on to discus and describe the automatic response (fight or flight reaction),