Stress and Immune Function in Humans

This chapter discusses stress and immune function in humans and how distress-related immunosuppression may have its most important health consequences in those individuals whose immune function is already impaired before the onset of a stressor.

Abstract

This chapter discusses stress and immune function in humans. Weight, sleep, and nutrition are variables that are carefully considered in evaluating immunologic differences. Although it is likely that distress-related behaviors contribute to the morbidity and mortality observed in epidemiologic studies, there may be potentially important immunologic differences in individuals who do not differ in obvious health behavior-related variables. Distress-related immunosuppression may have its most important health consequences in those individuals whose immune function is already impaired before the onset of a stressor, because further downward changes might lower immune function to a range where health effects might be more profound. In particular, older adults are one obvious at-risk group because there are reliable age-related decrements in immunity.