Outline and Evaluate Research into the relationship between stress and the Immune system Essay example

Submitted By SaintKB
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Outline and Evaluate Research into the relationship between stress and the Immune system (12)

The main function of the immune system is to protect the body from antigens such as viruses and bacteria. The immune system can fail us however by many factors which include stress which will then let antigens into the body (which would be called immunosupression)
Most studies of the relationship between stress and the immune system have focussed on acute(i.e. short lived) stressors and have found a decrease in white blood cell ability to function correctly this. Yet this is often speculated about if it is true or not. When we go through big life changes we usually become stressed which has been thought to been able to contribute to being stressed and in turn getting ill.

Holmes And Rahe however created a stress readjustment rating scale for assessing people’s stress levels which you fill in what big life events have happened to you within the last year and depending on what criteria you have filled in the rating scale would then dictate how stressed you are and then in turn how vulnerable to illness you are were; however the SRRS couldn’t establish cause and effect between the two also another thing to note was that it didn’t adjust to the fact that some people may have reacted differently to life changes such as going on holiday; making the rating scale less universal as a whole and also it was a retrospective method so people may also have forgotten things making the results from it unreliable. It was then used on 2500 male sailors while on tour of duty who were accompanied by a doctor and they were told to fill it out for the last six months during of which the doctor would have noted down any illnesses they had gained. There was a positive correlation between illness and the stress scores (with the higher the stress score