When Stress Is Good for Your Health

ByABC News
April 5, 2005, 11:58 AM

April 6, 2005 — -- Here's one of those fly-in-your face scientific findings: Some forms of stress may actually be good for you.

For about a decade now scientists at Ohio State University have turned out one study after another showing how stress can suppress the human body's immune system, thus leaving us more vulnerable to viruses like the flu. So it's little wonder they were a bit astounded when they discovered recently that at least one form of stress actually enhances the immune response in mice, and quite likely, in humans.

"We were kind of taken aback [by our findings]," says John Sheridan, professor of oral biology at the university in Columbus.

His colleague David Padgett puts it even more bluntly. "It's absolutely surprising," he says.

If further research supports these early findings it may be possible to develop far more effective flu vaccines, especially for the elderly. But first, the scientists have to figure out what the heck is going on here.

"We really don't know the mechanisms yet," Sheridan says. "We're in the process of trying to understand why."

What appears to be happening, according to another of their colleagues, Jacqueline Wiesehan, is that the type of stress used in the research enhanced the cellular memory of a flu vaccine, thus increasing the ability to deal with a subsequent exposure to the actual virus. In other words, when the real thing came along, the mice more easily recognized it and were better able to fight it off.

The animals we have to thank for this bit of knowledge include a bunch of mice that were bullied repeatedly by a mouse with a nasty disposition for a couple of hours for six consecutive days. At the end of that period the researchers infected the persecuted mice with a strain of influenza that also infects humans. Other mice, not subjected to the bullying, were also infected so the scientists could measure the effects of the stress.

The researchers thought they were creating chronic stress, such as that experienced by a longtime caregiver who has to watch over a loved one every moment of every day. That kind of stress has been shown over and over again to suppress immune systems, thus contributing to the decline in the health of the caregiver.