Many authors are interested in the relationship between stress and the immune system How do stress situations affect our body’s defenses?
Stress is often associated with a pathological condition. However, it refers to the human response to situations of threat or excessive demand, so they may be at the service of the survival of the individual and the species.
- The constant changes that we are subjected to on a daily basis can affect us greatly.
- Economic difficulties.
- Professional demands and negative life events can lead to inadequate insufficiency of our body.
When these reactions continue over time, an overload occurs in the body that can trigger health problems, called discomfort.
On the other hand, when an individual generates well-controlled and effective responses that allow him to adapt well, we speak of eustress.
How can the body respond to these demands? We have already mentioned how the response to stress occurs, in which different systems intervene, in a complex relationship.
This network is formed by the interaction involving the psyche and the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, as more than just its sum.
In this sense, Ader (2003) explains
“It is now clear that immune function is influenced by the autonomous activity of the nervous system and the release of neuroendocrine substances from the pituitary gland. On the other hand, cytokines and hormones released by the immune system influence nerve and endocrine processes. “Peptides and regulatory receptors, confined to the brain, are expressed by both the immune system and the nervous system, and allow each system to monitor and modulate each other’s activities.
It was in 1981 that scientist Robert Ader first introduced the term psychoneuroimmunology, which defined it as the scientific discipline that studies the interaction between behavior, neuronal and endocrine functions and immune processes.
Prior to this definition, the conventional conception of the immune system considered it a self-regulated and autonomous defense system. In the 1920s, research on the classical conditioning of immune responses began in Russia.
A little later, in the 1950s, Rasmussen and his collaborators formed the first research team focused on stress and infectious diseases.
However, it was not until the 1970s that John Hadden felt the relationship between stress and the immune system; specifically, he mentioned the association between the sympathetic nervous system and the immune system.
In 1981, Robert Ader presented the first manual and, with it, the beginning of the discipline of psychoneuroimmunology. His rodent experiments have focused on aversion to taste through conventional packaging.
In his experiments, he performed a previous training phase, in which the placebo control group and the experimental group with cyclophosphamide were treated; no hormonal response was observed in the first group, but the experimental group had nausea and immunosuppression.
In the second phase, the scientist administered saccharin to both groups, so that the control group continued without producing an abnormal response, while the experimental group showed aversive taste conditioning and immunosuppression.
Other authors, such as George Solomon, have also entered the world of psychoneuroimmunology, namely Solomon studied autoimmunity and psychological well-being, however, unlike Ader, he did not continue his studies, so his discoveries did not become famous.
Besedovsky was another author who became interested in the relationships of the immune system, regarded by him as a sensory organ.
Currently, communication between the immune system and the brain is considered bidirectional. Changes in the immune system are an explanatory mechanism by which psychosocial factors influence health and disease.
Our species is constantly threatened by a lot of pathogens, in this sense the tasks of the immune system are:
Thus, in the face of stress, the body reacts with an adaptive response or not, no one doubts that the stress and the immune system are in constant contact, in a communication on which our quality of life depends.