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More Negative Effects of Stress

Study Links Stress and Kidney Stones

In a study done at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, medical researchers tracked 200 patients with kidney stones and compared them with 200 similar individuals who do not suffer from the painful affliction. Researchers found that the group with the kidney stones were more likely to have undergone major stress in the past two years, such as getting divorced or getting married, being sued, work stress and demotions, etc. In the final analysis, the people with the kidney stones had statistically far more significant incidents of major stress.

Duke University Study Links Stress and Increase in Illnesses

In a study done at Duke University Medical Center, lead by Dr. George Parkerson Jr., a professor and former family practice department chairman, researchers examined families with stressed relationships and found an increase in illness, unmatched by either social or financial problems. The study revealed that ongoing stress related problems in the family is significant to individuals in regard to their health, both for the immediate period and as a future as a predictive measure for the future.

Connection Between Stress and Common Colds

English researchers, including one veteran from England’s Common Cold Unit, have found that individuals with high levels of psychological stress anxiety were at double the risk of developing a cold as those people who described their situation as one of low stress symptoms. To add to the statistical significance, the results were the same for all five cold viruses the participants were exposed to. While the researchers have still not identified the exact mechanism through which stress may assist the proliferation of various colds, viral experts now say these results form conclusive proof of the link between stress and the common cold. To add even more significance to their findings, one specialist (in the transmission of colds) recently concluded another study which found that, unlike it is commonly assumed, colds are rather difficult to spread from person to person and that the use of air filters and medicated tissues offer an effective defense.

Childhood Stress and Chronic Fatigue

Medical studies at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry have found that childhood trauma and intense stress anxiety increase a person’s risk for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) by three to eight times! Researcher Dr. Kenji Kato commented that their findings show, “Stress is a significant risk factor for chronic fatigue-like illness and… emotional instability assessed 25 years earlier is directly associated with chronic fatigue disorder.” The study sampled more than 56,000 residents of Wichita, Kansas and one key finding was that the more acute the stress was, the more the risk of CFS. The study found:

• 8 times the risk with childhood sexual abuse.  

• 5.9 times the risk with childhood physical neglect.

• 4.6 times the risk with childhood emotional neglect.

• 4.3 times the risk w/ childhood physical abuse. 

• 2.9 times the risk w/ childhood emotional abuse.

Stress and the Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease

The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation reports that studies at the University of California at Irvine (published in the Journal of Neuroscience) indicate stress may play an important role in the progression of Alzheimer’s (a disease causing damage to areas of the brain controlling thinking and memory). In the medical study, mice had been genetically altered to develop a brain aliment that is similar to Alzheimer’s in humans. When the mice were given injections of dexamethasone (similar to human stress hormones), levels of toxic beta-amyloid jumped by 60 percent. Buildup of beta-amyloid through stress is linked to the formation of brain-damaging plaques in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists also discovered protein levels of tau (associated to so-called tangles in the brain), another characteristic of Alzheimer.

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Sources: Stressful Life Events and Painful Recurrent Colic of Renal Lithiasis (kidney stone) The Journal of Urology  2006 Dec;176(6 Pt 1):2483-7 The Neuroendocrinology of Depression and Chronic Stress British Medical Bulletin 1996 Jul;52(3):597-617 Autonomic, Neuroendocrine, and Immune Responses to Psychological Stress: the reactivity hypothesis Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1998 May 1;840:664-73 Glucocorticoids Increase Amyloid- and Tau Pathology in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease The Journal of NeuroscienceAugust 30, 2006, 26(35):9047-9056

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