The Link Between Stress and Inflammation

Research shows that stress, the body’s response to feeling challenged or threatened, induces or worsens medical conditions, including depression, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer.

But the exact mechanism by which stress induces disease has remained a mystery. Until now.

A study review concluded that inflammation is a common pathway of stress-related diseases.

“Chronic inflammation is an essential component of chronic diseases,” the authors wrote.

Still, the pathway from stress to inflammation to disease isn’t always clear.

“There’s no one simple answer,” says Alka Gupta, MD, codirector of integrative health at the Brain and Spine Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “We do know, though, that when we teach people how to reduce stress in whatever form — stress management tips, classes, individual advice, yoga, deep breathing — we see decreases in some of these inflammatory side effects. ”

So if we can understand the ways in which chronic stress leads to low-level inflammation, we may be able to avoid at least some of that inflammation before it leads to or worsens disease.

What Happens in the Body When You’re Stressed?

When you’re stressed — emotionally, psychologically, or physically — your body goes into what’s colloquially called the “fight-or-flight response,” as it readies for, well, fighting or fleeing. One effect is the release of the stress hormone cortisol, says Dr. Gupta. Cortisol works to suppress nonessential-in-an-emergency functions, like your immune response and digestion. Together with the release of other chemical messengers, the hormone fuels the production of glucose, or blood sugar, boosting energy to the large muscles, while inhibiting insulin production and narrowing arteries, which forces the blood to pump harder to aid our stressor response.

Another hormone, adrenaline, is also released, which tells the body to increase heart and respiratory rate, and to expand airways to push more oxygen into muscles. Your body also makes glycogen, or stored glucose (sugar), available to power muscles. In addition, stress decreases lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system, putting you at risk for viral infections like the common cold.

“When the fight or flight response is invoked, your body directs resources away from functions that aren’t crucial in life-threatening situations,” Gupta says.

The fight-or-flight response itself is meant to be short term and adaptive, which makes sense: When your body goes into that mode, your normal immune function is temporarily shut down. If you think of fight-or-flight as triggered by something like a tiger chasing you, your body devotes energy and resources to running away, not to digesting the last thing you ate — or to sending immune-fighting cells to kill a cold virus. It’s when you’re in that state chronically that the cascading inflammatory response is set up.

It’s this maladaptive response to stress, says Gupta, that over time perpetuates itself and becomes implicated in chronic health problems.

What Is Inflammation?

Inflammation is the body’s response to a threat, whether it’s a foreign invader like a bacteria or virus, cancer, a transplanted organ (which the body sees as “foreign”), or even a psychological or emotional stressor. In response, the immune system sends out an army of chemicals, called pro-inflammatory cytokines, to attack the invaders.

“Think of inflammation as a ‘sickness behavior,’” says Madhukar Trivedi, MD, director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Inflammation, he says, “causes your body to act fluish, even in the absence of the flu virus.”

Pro-inflammatory cytokines usually do their job and then disappear, but when stress is chronic, they are “upregulated” in your system — meaning the cycle of stress and inflammatory response gets habituated in the body, explains Gupta. Over time, these cytokines may perpetuate themselves. That’s when inflammation starts to cause deleterious effects on the body. And while no one is completely sure why — there are many mechanisms responsible for diseases — what many conditions have in common is chronic, low-level inflammation.

Chronic Conditions Linked to Stress

• Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) It’s understood that inflammation is behind RA, a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks joints and tissues, causing stiffness and pain. Over time, inflammation can damage joints and bones, causing abnormalities. Inflammation in RA is partly caused by cytokines, chemicals that are released by stress. So if you’re stressed you’ll release more of these chemicals, increasing the amount of inflammation in your body. It may also be the case that the inflammation associated with RA can lead to other medical issues, such as heart attack, stroke, or even cancer, according to research. Researchers concluded that the inflammation that caused the RA, plus further inflammation caused by the RA, may be the culprit.
• Cardiovascular Disease An amped-up sympathetic nervous system — the response that primes your body to fight or flee — also works to constrict blood vessels, which forces your heart to work harder and raises blood pressure. Inflammation is at the core of the development of atherosclerosis, a precursor to heart disease, says Gupta. In addition, those who are chronically stressed tend to make unhealthy choices (such as eating unhealthy foods, smoking, and not exercising) that contribute to or worsen cardiovascular disease.
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) IBD is an umbrella term for inflammation-linked conditions that affect the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Both are exacerbated by stress, which affects the body’s normal secretion of digestive enzymes, and can interfere with how you digest food, absorb nutrients, and rid the body of waste. In recent years, researchers have linked a peptide in the brain and gut called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), which is activated when you’re stressed, to proper colonic function. In addition, one study stated that CRF plays a major role in bowel function, and may help explain the link between stress and irritable bowel syndrome (even though IBS isn’t a form of IBD).
• Depression Pro-inflammatory cytokines, those chemical messengers released in response to physical or psychological stress, can trigger depressive symptoms in some people, leading to lowered mood, fatigue, and lack of normal enjoyment of life. “Inflammation can lead to symptoms that look like depression, and in people who already have depression, inflammation can worsen the symptoms,” says Dr. Trivedi. In one study, researchers subjected mice to stressful conditions while monitoring signs of brain immune cell activation. In this study, anxiety and depression-like activity were associated with activation of the immune cells within the brain. This suggests that exposure to stress leads to the rewiring of neural circuits in the brain, setting off of mood symptoms.

Strategies to Reduce Stress and Decrease Inflammation

There are many research-backed ways to reduce stress, chief among them aerobic exercise, yoga, and meditation.

One study found that subjects who meditated regularly had lower levels of cortisol, as measured after a social-stress test. Meditators also had a less-pronounced inflammatory response in their bodies. Similar results have been linked to the regular practice of yoga, which another study found lowered levels of cortisol and decrease inflammation.

Although the same stress-reduction method might not work for everyone, Gupta says that every form of stress reduction does require patience.

“We essentially have to learn how to change our response to situations in our environment — responses that may have evolved over decades of our lives,” she says.

Other stress relief techniques include:

• Journaling
• Talking with a friend
• Walking in the park or forest
• Breathing in lavender or scented candles
• Counseling and therapy

Taking time to be outdoors, in nature, and with other people — the opposite of some of our work-focused, isolated, and sedentary modern lifestyles — works wonders to reduce stress, Gupta says. “They create space between our environment and ourselves, so we have some room to respond rather than to react. ”

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Chronic Psychological Stress and Inflammation

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Chronic Psychological Stress and InflammationGIS2020-07-09T08:09:17-07:00

A study of parents with children being treated for cancer – reported in the 2002 November issue of the journal Health Psychology – suggests that chronic stress may hamper a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory response in the body.

To examine the mechanisms responsible for these effects, researchers have explored the relationship between psychological stress and the immune system, the body’s chief defense against many diseases. Numerous links between stress and the immune response have been identified in previous studies. In this study, the researchers examined the effects of stress hormones on white blood cells used by the body to fight infection.

Ordinarily, white blood cells will concentrate in the area of injury or infection where they release chemicals called cytokines to fend off the invaders, a process generally known as inflammation. While inflammation can help fight infection, too much inflammation occurring over time can actually be damaging. Under normal circumstances, the inflammation process is naturally stopped in the body when levels of a stress hormone, cortisol, begin to rise. It is harmful to the body when the inflammation process does not stop as it should.

In this report, fifty healthy adults were studied; half were parents of cancer patients, and half were parents of healthy children. Parents of cancer patients reported more psychological distress than parents of healthy children. They also had flatter diurnal slopes of cortisol secretion, primarily because of reduced output during the morning hours. There was also evidence that chronic stress impaired the immune system’s response to anti-inflammatory signals: The capacity of a synthetic glucocorticoid hormone to suppress in vitro production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 was diminished among parents of cancer patients.

The researchers found that the white blood cells of stressed parents were less responsive to the hormone, and less likely to shut down an inflammatory response, than the less stressed parents. Their cells kept producing more cytokines.

The findings highlight the fact that stress may interfere with the body’s ability to shut down its own immune response after it gets started.

The study authors also hypothesized that social support would operate in a buffering fashion, and that their, “findings corroborate evidence suggesting that social support has the capacity to buffer people from the immunologic consequences of chronically stressful experience.”

Therefore, the bodies of those people suffering from stress may be less likely to regulate their normal defense mechanisms. Having a strong supportive network may help alleviate stress, thereby helping the body return to normal function.

First published in the

Inside Tract® newsletter issue 134 – November/December 2002

Health Psychology 2002;21:531-541

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5 proven ways to help beat chronic stress

Contents of the article

Chronic stress damages areas of the prefrontal cortex that are responsible for emotional state and behavior. It becomes difficult for a person to reduce negative emotions on his own, he sees the world only in gray colors. All events at work or in personal life cause panic, anxiety and depression, the state of a person is gradually approaching emotional and professional burnout. If you are faced with chronic stress, then you urgently need to restore internal balance. We have prepared 6 proven ways from our free online stress management course to help you increase your stress tolerance.

Step 1 – switch to another activity (games, walking, simple tasks)

If you feel that a wave of strong negative emotions will overwhelm you right now, then at this moment you need to calm yourself down. This requires a lot of effort, especially under chronic stress. Therefore, it is necessary to develop self-control and willpower, but this is in the long term. In an emergency, playing games on the phone, a quick walk in the fresh air will help to distract. If you can’t leave your workplace, then start doing simple tasks that will help you get rid of thoughts.

Step 2 – don’t overwork yourself to reduce stress hormones

When a person is under stress, different hormones begin to be released in the body, one of them is cortisol. In moderation, cortisol is good for a person, but excessive levels can lead to depression. Cortisol can be produced just from thinking about chronic stress. The more you wind yourself up, the more you fall into a stressful state. Many mistakenly think that just relaxing on the couch in front of the TV can reduce stress, but this will only make matters worse. It is important to distract yourself from internal experiences and switch your thoughts.

Step 3 – Activate the Mind to Suppress Emotions

Once you have worked through your emotions, you need to get your brain active and engage in rational thinking. There are several ways to do this:

• Jogging or light exercise. Only light physical activity will help to cope with stress. It is important that you have a desire to play sports. Exhausting workouts, on the contrary, can harm you even more.
• Proper nutrition. Give up sugary and fatty, consume as many calories as your body needs.
• Training. Do not let your brain get bored and distracted by experiences. Take various courses, watch webinars, develop yourself.

Step 4 – Reduce Inflammation in the Body

Studies have shown that stress causes chronic inflammation in the body. Stress, depression and inflammation are in a strong bond, provoking the appearance of each other. Therefore, it is necessary to start treating inflammation in the body in order to reduce long-term stress. Or, conversely, work on two problems at once.

Step 5 – enjoy life to overcome stress

During prolonged stress, you do not want to do anything, even do what you love. A person is almost constantly in a negative mood. To get out of this vicious circle, you must independently arouse in yourself the desire to do something. Think about what brings you pleasure. Imagine how you will enjoy this. Once you start the process, enjoy every minute.

Acute mental stress causes vascular inflammation and contributes to destabilization of plaques in atherosclerosis in mice

Maxim Markovich Stepanov

Purpose of the study:

Mental stress significantly contributes to the emergence and progression of human diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. The study sought to address the underlying mechanisms of these processes, as they remain largely obscure.

Methods and results:

Human and mouse studies have shown that leukocytes are rapidly cleared from the blood after a single episode of acute mental stress. Using cell-tracking experiments in animal models of acute mental stress, it has been found that exposure to stress leads to rapid infiltration of inflammatory leukocytes from the blood into various tissues, including the heart, lungs, skin, and, if present, atherosclerotic plaques. Mechanistically, the research team found that acute stress enhances leukocyte influx into mouse atherosclerotic plaques by modulating endothelial cells. In particular, acute stress increases the expression of adhesion molecules and the release of chemokines at the expense of local norepinephrine. Chemical or surgical disruption of norepinephrine production signals a reduction in stress-induced migration of leukocytes into mouse atherosclerotic plaques.

Conclusion:

These studies show that acute mental stress rapidly increases the expansion of inflammatory leukocytes within atherosclerotic lesions in mice and contributes to plaque vulnerability.

This study provides new mechanistic insight into how acute mental stress fuels vascular inflammation and promotes plaque rupture.

Article photo gallery

October 5, 2021

Source: Source: European Heart Journal
The study was conducted in Germany.

Published: July 19, 2021

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