Relationship Between Stress And Immune System

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Describing and evaluating research into the relationship between stress and the immune system Hans Selye (1956) provided the first systematic attempt to describe the body's response to stress and his theory alerted the world of medicine to a link between stress and illness; this theory is the general adaptation syndrome (G.A.S) which describes the body’s reaction to stress as an immediate alarm followed by resistance to the stress followed by exhaustion once the body's resources become depleted. Thus summed up, Selye states that the body handles stress through Alarm-Resistance-exhaustion. This means that stress can cause illness through immunosuppression. His inspiration for G.A.S came from an endocrinological experiment in which he injected mice with extracts of various organs. He at first believed he had discovered a new hormone, but was proved wrong when every irritating substance he injected produced the same symptoms (for example, swelling of the adrenal cortex). This led to what he first called noxious agents, layer coined as 'stress' by Selye. Although Selye's theory is often praised due to it being the first theory to suggest a correlated relationship between stress and the immune system it is often criticised for overemphasising physiological factors and not taking into consideration psychological factors and cognitive factors such as personality which includes a persons capability to withstand certain levels of stress (for example, the type A type B personality theory). the model also implies a passive response to stressors, despite the fact that people react differently to the same stressor and the reaction depends on the individual, the situation and the particular source of stress. Also most of Selye's work was conduced using rats and is very restricted, thus it may not actually apply to other animals such as humans. Building on the theory of
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