{"id":2732,"date":"1999-03-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-03-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/stress-of-caregiving-affects-immune-system-functioning\/"},"modified":"2021-06-22T21:02:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T21:02:39","slug":"stress-of-caregiving-affects-immune-system-functioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/stress-of-caregiving-affects-immune-system-functioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Stress Of Caregiving Affects Immune System Functioning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-content\"><p>NEW YORK, Mar &#8217;99- The chronic stress of caring for an ailing loved one can reduce the body&#8217;s ability to fight off illness, researchers conclude.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Paul J. Mills of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues have found &#8220;functional immune deficits in elderly caregivers of patients with Alzheimer&#8217;s disease.&#8221; They published their report in the March issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Previous research demonstrated that psychological stress has a detrimental effect on immunological function. In this study, the authors measured immune system markers in the blood of 41 elderly men and women caring for spouses suffering from Alzheimer&#8217;s disease. Ten of these individuals were classed as highly vulnerable to stress &#8212; rarely receiving a break from attending to their loved one&#8217;s needs around the clock.<\/p>\n<p>Mills and colleagues were especially interested in blood levels of CD8 and CD4 T lymphocytes &#8212; roving white blood cells that help rid the body of invading pathogens. Activation of these cells &#8220;is generally accompanied by a shedding of (a specific protein called CD62L),&#8221; according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>The investigators report that &#8220;vulnerable caregivers had 60% fewer&#8221; active CD8 T cells, and &#8220;significantly fewer&#8221; active CD4 T cells compared with less-stressed caregivers.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers speculate that chronic elevated levels of circulating epinephrine, a stress hormone, inhibit the shedding of CD62L from these immune cells leading to a decreased number of these cells in the circulation.<\/p>\n<p>A deficit of active T cells would leave the stressed caregiver more open to infection and illness. Indeed, Mill and colleagues note that &#8220;in this study, the vulnerable caregivers reported that their illnesses lasted three times longer than the nonvulnerable caregivers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Previous reports have also found that stressed caregivers have higher rates of hypertension, hospitalization, poorer immune responses to vaccination, and slower wound healing compared with their unstressed peers.<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine 1999;61:168-174<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chronic stress of caring for an ailing loved one can reduce the body&#8217;s ability to fight off illness.  Read more about the results of this research study, as summarized from the professional journal, Psychosomatic Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5,16,6,17],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1164],"class_list":["post-2732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-care-for-the-caregiver-nurturing","category-caregiver-issues","category-diseases-illnesses-conditions","category-eldercare","category-research"],"authors":[{"term_id":1164,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"psychosomatic-medicine","display_name":"Psychosomatic Medicine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4306,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732\/revisions\/4306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2732"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/care-givers.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}