Life Events, Emotions, and Immune Function: Evidence from Whitehall II Cohort Study.

In this study, we adopted an evolutionary and functionalist perspective on emotions and hypothesized that both positive and negative emotions in response to stressful events are protective, whereas absence of emotional reactions exacerbates vulnerability to infections. We assessed immune function using lymphocytes to white blood cells ratio as a proxy for current viral infection in 3,008 British civil workers (30% women). No main effect of stressful life events or emotions on lymphocyte ratio was observed in either sex. However, in men, there was an interaction of life events with both positive and negative emotions as well as a combined measure of general affect. Supporting our hypothesis, stressful life events were associated with impaired immune function in men who reported very low levels of both positive and negative emotions but not in others. We discuss potential benefits of negative and positive emotions in the context of stress and immunity.
PMID: 30908163 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Behavioral Medicine - March 24, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dich N, Rozing MP, Kivimäki M, Doan SN Tags: Behav Med Source Type: research