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Contents
- Abstract
- Conceptualizing Stress
- Overview of the Immune System
- Components of the Immune System
- Immune Assays
- Pathways Between Stress and the Immune System
- Models of Stress, the Immune System, and Health
- Who Is Vulnerable to Stress-Induced Immune Changes?
- The Present Analysis
- Method
- Article Identification
- Stressor Classification
- The Meta-Analysis
- Overview of procedures
- Handling missing data
- Handling dependent data
- Results
- Preliminary Findings
- Interpreting the Meta-Analytic Findings
- Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Stressors
- Acute time-limited stressors
- Brief naturalistic stressors
- Stressful event sequences
- Chronic stressors
- Distant stressors
- Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Checklists and Ratings
- Nonspecific life events
- Global stress appraisals and intrusive thoughts
- Evidence Regarding Type I Error and Publication Bias
- Discussion
- Models of Stress and the Immune System
- Individual Differences and Immune Change Under Stress
- Mechanisms of Stress Effects on the Immune System
- Stress, the Immune System, and Disease
- Conclusion
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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.
Since the dawn of time, organisms have been subject to evolutionary pressure from the environment. The ability to respond to environmental threats or stressors such as predation or natural disaster enhanced survival and therefore reproductive capacity, and physiological responses that supported such responses could be selected for. In mammals, these responses include changes that increase the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the heart and the large skeletal muscles. The result is physiological support for adaptive behaviors such as “fight or...