Everyone knows that stress can be both good and bad rite? Good in the sense it makes you more competitive and more efficient. Watever! But, we all know too much stress is also not good, cos it causes you to break down. But recently, it has been proven that a link exists between stress and certain illnesses such as flu and cancer. So in the Dec 5 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, several Australian researchers found that stress triggers the release of a hormone neuropeptide Y (NPY) which then inhibits the body's immune system from destroying bacteria and viruses, and thus causes the person to fall ill. An abstract of their work can be found here, but it's too cheem to understand lah. What Y1-/- mice thing which they mentioned most people also won't understand lah. So might as well let me summarize it. This NPY impairs the ability of a body's immune system to detect pathogens and hence send out T helper type 1 (Th1) cells, which under non-stress circumstances, are sent out by the lymph nodes to attack foreign objects. With stress, the Th1 cells are not sent out, in spite of the presence of bacteria. This bacteria then infects other cells and causes a person to fall sick! Ta da! So what's the moral of the story? You tell me lah .........
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