Effects of stress on health

Medical branch of psychology which aims to find the connection between a somatic disorder and its etiology is often psychological. Its theoretical basis is the consideration of man as indissoluble psychophysical unity, this implies that in every form of disease, and since even in accidental trauma, play a role alongside the somatic factors also fattoripsicologici.
The interconnection between a disorder and its cause of psychic origin goes back to the holistic view of the human body: the body and mind are closely linked.
Addresses one of the most promising research in psychosomatic in recent years is the psiconeuroendocrinoimmunologia, which has the aim of clarifying the relationship between psychological functioning, secretion of neurotransmitters and hormones and immune system function.
We can therefore hypothesize an effect of the state's mental health and disease, mostly through alteration of the immune system function. In reference to what has been extensively studied the effects of stress on the immune system.
Selye described stress around 1938 for the first time, but popularized his work between '73 and '75, defining his "general adaptation syndrome" as an interpretive key to the development of a series of psychogenic disorders for nature related to a psychological rather than organic etiology, such Psychosomatic disorders were defined.
In general syndrome of adaptation to the author distinguished three phases: a first alarm stage in which the body is prepared physiologically action, producing a significant amount of ACTH, adrenal stimulating hormone. The amount of pituitary ACTH produced is proportional to the amount (intensity and duration) of the stimulus applied. ACTH has the effect of the increase, by the adrenal gland, the production of two groups of hormones, the cortical and medullary, or corticosteroids and adrenaline.
In the second phase of resistance, the body due to increased production of adrenaline, is designed to withstand the action of the stimulus that alters its balance. At this point there are two possibilities: the cessation of the stimulus disturbing, and in this case the body quickly recover its equilibrium previously disturbed then entering in the recovery phase, or, in the case of persistence of the stimulation disturbing, the body will enter into a phased out - the third phase - where the ability to produce adaptive hormones is no longer sufficient; stocks are depleted and the body is at the mercy of any internal or environmental noxious agent.
Stress is then represented by the complex series of biological responses that follows the intervention of a generic factor pest, and is generally regarded as a non-specific response of the organism to each request made on it. The stress reaction is a reaction physiologically useful as adaptive, because it allows the development of mechanisms aimed at the preservation of the individual and the species it is important to note that stressful events, is an existential type that daily stimulation, can not be considered per se pathogens, and that stress can become a pathogenic condition if the stressor acts with particular intensity and for periods of time sufficiently long.
Stress is capable of determining the variations of the immune response: in particular, if the stress is applied acutely, next to the processes of adaptation or neutralization of the stressful stimulus, there is sometimes to a stimulation of the immune response; if the stress is chronic, on the contrary, causes reduction or abolition of the lymphocyte.
Human studies have shown immunosuppression as a result of events with strong emotional connotations, such as death of spouse, separation and divorce, various stressful situations, negative mood, experience of loneliness (cited in Solano, Coda, 1994) .
Holmes and Rahe (1967) developed the "Social Readjustment Rating Scale" in which 43 life situations are quite common evaluated according to different degrees of importance they have for the average individual.
In addition, other studies focused on the effect on the health of specific loss consists of a death, considered the most stressful event of life: the grief may cause increased chances of illness and death (Parkes, 1970; Hostfeld and Jacobs, 1977; Klerman and Izen, 1977).
Affected by the connection between object loss and the onset of the disease, Engel and Schmale (1967) postulated a concurrent psychobiological state (complex "waiver / condemnation"), which is a transitional state during which the ego is not available or not yet developed defenses or strategies to deal with the loss of an object, the complex of "waiver / condemnation", once developed, would initiate a process autonomous, endocrine and immunological lowering the body's resistance and allow the emergence of the disease.

An example of how psychosocial factors can affect some diseases is represented by the studies on acute infectious diseases. The psychosocial variables related to acute infectious diseases are usually temporary variables, "status", as stressful events or transient emotional states, stressing that in the absence of an infectious agent even more acute emotional stress can cause an infection, they may affect susceptibility to infectious disease in three basic ways (Solano, Coda, 1994):
- Preparing people exposed to a disease agent to contract the infection through an altered biological susceptibility;
- Triggering or facilitating a process whereby a pathogen already present in the organism to reproduce;
- Contributing to the maintenance of a pathogenic process already underway.
The emotional state may affect the functionality of the immune system, primarily responsible for resistance to disease, both in a direct way, ie by means innervation by the central nervous system of lymphoid organs or through the mediation of neuroendocrine mechanisms (many hormones secreted in stressful situations are involved in the modulation of immune function), both in an indirect way, by means of the behavioral reactions harmful to health (Cohen and Williamson, 1991).