Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry.

Summary & key facts

Researchers combined results from more than 300 studies that measured how psychological stress affects the human immune system. They found that very short stressors, those lasting minutes, often boosted some fast, general immune defenses while reducing some targeted immune functions. Short everyday stress like exams tended to lower the immune cells that attack infected cells but left antibody levels alone. Long-term stress was linked to weakening both cell-based and antibody-based immune responses. Reports of feeling stressed usually did not match the lab measures of immune change, and older people or those with illnesses were sometimes more likely to show immune changes during stress.

Key facts:

• The report pooled findings from over 300 studies on people to look for links between stress and immune measures.
• Acute stressors that last minutes often increased some immediate, general immune defenses (what scientists call natural immunity) while reducing some targeted immune functions (specific immunity).
• Brief real-life stressors, such as exams, tended to suppress cellular immunity, meaning the immune cells that attack infected cells were reduced, while humoral immunity, meaning antibodies in the blood, was mostly preserved.
• Chronic, long-lasting stress was associated with lower functioning of both cellular immunity and humoral immunity, suggesting broader weakening of immune responses.
• The immune effect of a sequence of stressful events depended on the type of event; for example, reactions varied between traumatic events and losses.
• People’s own reports of how stressed they felt generally did not match the measured changes in their immune systems.
• In some studies, older people or people with existing illnesses showed larger immune changes when exposed to stressors, indicating greater vulnerability.

Abstract

The present report meta-analyzes more than 300 empirical articles describing a relationship between psychological stress and parameters of the immune system in human participants. Acute stressors (lasting minutes) were associated with potentially adaptive upregulation of some parameters of natural immunity and downregulation of some functions of specific immunity. Brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral measures. Effects of event sequences varied according to the kind of event (trauma vs. loss). Subjective reports of stress generally did not associate with immune change. In some cases, physical vulnerability as a function of age or disease also increased vulnerability to immune change during stressors.

Topics

Health, psychology, and well-being Stress Responses and Cortisol Tryptophan and brain disorders

Categories

Behavioral Neuroscience Life Sciences Neuroscience

Tags

Cellular immunity Clinical psychology Computer science Computer security Developmental psychology Humoral immunity Immune system Immunity Immunology Internal medicine Medicine Meta-analysis Psychology Stressor Vulnerability (computing)