New research has surprisingly shown that stress, generally thought to be bad for the immune system by lowering the body's ability to fight off disease, on a short-term basis might actually be beneficial.
Ohio State University scientist Jacqueline Wiesehan, a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. John Sheridan at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry has discovered that short-term social stress actually benefited the immune system of mice given low-dose influenza infection, and the scientists believe the finding has broad implications for more effective vaccination strategies.
Previous research and a growing body of literature demonstrates that immune system responsiveness to influenza infection and vaccination is heavily influenced by the nervous system. The mice were subjected to short-term, episodic, and severe stress. They lived in a colony with a well established hierarchy of mice, so having a higher-ranked, more aggressive mouse placed in their cage for two hours was very disruptive and upsetting. This stressful episode was repeated on six consecutive days, after which both stressed and non-stressed mice were given a low-dose influenza infection.
All quickly recovered and within four weeks had developed stable immunological memory to the virus as happens after a flu vaccination. But it was revealed, by delayed hypersensitivity tests and fluorescently-labelled antibody screening, that the mice that had been stressed prior to receiving the influenza infection had a stronger immune reaction to the infection, with markedly higher numbers of two types of T cells specific for influenza. When exposed to the influenza virus a second time, these memory helper T cells (CD4) and cytotoxic T cells (CD8) would allow the body to fight off the virus faster and more successfully.