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Sight of sick person can trigger immune response The Chart
Research published in the journal Psychological Science found that when people viewed a slide show of photos depicting symptoms of infectious disease pox,[url=http://www.onitsukatiger.com.sg]asics singapore[/url], skin lesions, sneezing their immune response became more aggressive against bacteria. The study was led by Mark Schaller at the University of British Columbia.One group of participants viewed a slide show of furniture followed by the disease slideshow in a separate session, and the other group saw the furniture photos and then, on a later occasion, images of people holding firearms. Everyone involved had blood samples drawn before and after viewing the slideshows.Scientists compared the white blood cells of participants who viewed the disease slide show against those who saw the gun depictions. They found that the white blood cells of people who saw the disease images tended to respond more aggressively to bacteria than the group that saw the guns.Researchers also looked at emotional state, and found that participants' stress levels were higher after the firearms presentation than after the infectious disease images. Similarly, they found that the level of participants' disgust with the pictures of ill people did not have an effect on the immune response.Having this immune response may have had its advantages in the days of early humans even though they may have recoiled at the sight of other sick people too, their immune responses would have helped them live in proximity with others. A 2004 study in Psychological Bulletin, led by Suzanne Segerstrom at the University of Kentucky, suggested that persistent priming of the immune system could have negative effects overall.Editor Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.Very interesting study. I often wondered if certain things will help to boost the immune system. Throughout my childhood I always got some crap for biting my fingernails. I never got sick more than the next kid, and I started telling people that the small yet consistant introduction of bacteria to my body helped prepare and strengthen my immune system. I usually just get a laugh out of it, but recently I started wondering if that actually has any merit.April 28, 2010 at 20:32 Excellent stuff. A microbe responds to environmental stimuli using phosophorelay systems to elicit a cellular response, just as humans do with their senses. So why can the downstream effect function in the immune system? The metabolic crosstalk that must occur for this sort of process must be amazing; i say too complex for today biochemistry, and better sequencing technology might not be the savior.Basic science will play a crucial role in uncovering some amazing things about the human body in the next century. Keep the funding coming!April 28, 2010 at 22:27 Thanks for your interest; I have updated the post with further citation information, but for quick reference, this is the study:Schaller, Mark, et al. (2010) Visual Perception of Other People's Disease Symptoms Facilitates a More Aggressive Immune Response. Psychological Science.And the one mentioned further down is:April 29, 2010 at 08:50 A few posts have suggested that these findings are on the basis of the idea that stress inhibits immune functions via cortisol. In fact, the story is much more complicated than that. Whether stress leads to increases or decreases in various immune system activities depends on many factors the duration and intensity of the stressor, the type of hormone responses it elicits, and the kind of immune function being considered. The paper by Segerstrom in 2004 provides a good overview of these patterns. Also, cortisol effects on immune functions are not uniformly suppressive at low physiologic doses it mostly has enhancing effects but this too depends somewhat on which immune process is being considered.