The Effects Of Cortisol Mediated Chronic And Acute Stress And Immune System Response

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.

Aims ---- The aim of this experiment was to determine the effects of stress on the immune system. This was determined by analysing how quickly a person’s wound healed. It naturally is clearly difficult to create stress within a group of participants to examine how stress does affect your immune system.

When put under stress, both humans and baboons have cortisol and adrenaline found in their blood. These hormones are critical for survival, and other physical changes in the body such as a racing heart, increased blood pressure, and quickly responding muscles are all present when the body is put under stress. However, in regard to humans, these same physical responses can occur when the body is not in a life in death situation. Instead, it is common for psychological stresses such as public speaking, taking a test, paying taxes, or driving a vehicle to invoke the same physiological responses as someone in a critical situation. This can be unhealthy for the human body, as many people can get worked up over multiple stressors in one day,

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

cope in the face of danger. In situations of chronic threat, a condition called ‘hypercortisolism’

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

Cortisol is also known as the “ The Stress Hormone” and “Public Health Enemy Number One” according to Christopher Bergland (1). Cortisol has its way in our bodies because with too much or to low our bodies will have problems. Even though having too much cortisol in our bodies is bad, it stills an essential part for our body because it influences and regulates many of the changes that occur in the body in response to stress (3).

The hormones released during the acute stress response is considered the “master switch” in controlling the person’s behavioral and physiological adaptation to stress. (Mannironi, et al., 2013) The targets of these hormones are the cognitive, wake sleep, and reward and fear centers of the brain. (Chrousos, 2009) The growth, gastrointestinal, cardiorespiratory, metabolic, reproductive and thyroid hormone axis, and immune systems are also effected. (Chrousos, 2009) Optimal basal

Cortisol also partially shuts down the immune system when levels are high. It interferes with T-cell production and function, making your body more susceptible to invading pathogens. Ever notice how people who are constantly stressed are always getting sick? Or how a person can go through a major stressor and right after overcoming it

The response of the body to stress is somewhat like an airplane readying for take-off. Virtually all systems (the heart and blood vessels, the immune system, the lungs, the digestive system, the sensory organs, and brain) are modified to meet the perceived danger. During conditions of stress there is a shift in the balance between two branches of the automatic nervous system (ANS) – the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).During stressful conditions, the activity of the SNS increases to prepare the body for the fight – or fight response. This means that, among other things, there is an increased heart rate, blood flow, and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) – basically how sweaty our skin is! This response can be thought of as a shift in energy from the process of digestion to the muscles, meaning that the body is ready to take

[Griffin n.d.] Physiological scientist Hans Seyle studied stress in rats and found that no matter what kind of stress they endured they suffered the same physiological change as if they had suffered prolonged stress. Seyle named the stages that the rats went through the General Adaptation Syndrome. [Kalat,2017] The three phases of the physiological change that occurs in response to long term stress are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. Alarm is the first reaction to stress where your body releases hormones including cortisol. This is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. A person wont immediate recognize the cortisol working because it is a multi-step process involving two minor hormones. The brain has two pathways that process stimuli. The first is the amygdala that has to recognize the threat and send a message to the hypothalamus part of the brain which releases a hormone that then tells the pituitary gland to release cortisol. In event of a life emergency, the high amounts of cortisol will help save your life. It helps to maintain fluid balance and blood pressure, while slowing down some body functions that aren’t crucial in the moment, like reproductive drive, immunity, digestion

The stress hormone that we release when are stressed is called Cortisol. Cortisol is an important hormone in the body and is secreted by the adrenal glands. It is at it’s highest levels in the morning and should only be released in short bursts of time. Cortisol is used within the body to maintain proper glucose metabolism, regulation of blood pressure, release insulin for blood sugar maintenance, immune function, and inflammatory response. Short terms effects of cortisol are small effects are a quick burst of energy for survival reasons, increased memory functions, a burst of increased immunity, lower sensitivity to pain, and helps maintain homeostasis in the body.

The mediators of the human stress response are commonly found within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and it is through this pathway where the body is coaxed back into homeostasis after exposure to stress (28). This axis is regulated through the synthesis and secretion of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) from the hypothalamus, which through a ligand-receptor interaction on the anterior pituitary gland, stimulates the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) into the systemic circulation (28). ACTH eventually induces GC synthesis and secretion from the adrenal cortex (28). Cortisol is a GC secreted in humans, integral to regulating the physiological changes within the body through intracellular receptor activation