The Impacts of Psychological Disorders on the Immune System

This essay discusses how an individual's psychological state affects their immune system. It defines the immune system as an interaction of cellular products with cells and identifies white blood cells as the key role players. It inscribes the various psychological conditions that affect the functionality of the immune system, including stress, depression, and optimism.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM 1
The Impacts of Psychological Disorders on the Immune System
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Basically, interaction of cellular products with cells forms the immune system. The main fighter
cells of the immune system are the white blood cells which are also known as leukocytes.
Monocytes, granulocytes and lymphocytes are the main categories of white blood cells (Beck,
2011). They all have different functions which jointly contributes to the overall immunity of an
individual. There are two basic means by which the immune response is measured. In
quantitative measurements, the percentage of each cell type in the blood while in functional
measurements, cells are exposed to mitogens and the exposure results then observed. The
immune system is directly impacted by an individual’s psychological state. Stress, for example,
has a variety of effects on the endocrine system. Such effects impact the activation of the well-
known flight or fight response which is achieved through the activation of the hypothalamic-
pituitary-adrenocortical (HPAC) system and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) system
(Glaser & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2014).
Due to the nature of how the body deals with internal psychological factors such as stress, such
factors have been directly linked to causing a deficit in the immune system. In cases of chronic
stress, the autonomic nervous system is frequently activated, a factor which subsequently leads
to diminishing of the immune system capabilities (Martin, 2016). As such, the immune system is
significantly downgraded reducing its capacity to function continuously. Various large studies
have been conducted incorporating parents whose children are healthy and another group of
parents whose children suffered from cancer. The results indicated that the immune system’s
reactions to hormonal secretions are greatly reduced by chronic psychological stress. Such
reactions of the immune system normally play a significant role in fighting inflammatory
responses (Ranchor, Sanderman, & Coyne, 2010). It has also been concluded that the
effectiveness of the immune system is greatly affected by perceived moods. An increased ability

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to fight diseases by the immune system directly correlates with positive attitudes. A study of
patients undergoing surgical operations revealed that patients who were fearful before a surgery
took longer periods of time to heal.
Stress has also been known to have significant impacts on cardiovascular diseases. The
cardiovascular system could be decidedly negatively impacted by the natural response of the
flight or fight mechanism. Due to the fact that the flight or fight systems are activated by an
increase of the heart rate, the possibility of a heart attack and/or a wide range of other heart-
related diseases is increased by frequent activations (Hjemdahl, Rosengren, & Steptoe, 2011).
Even in health conditions that are relatively less dangerous, mood and stress have been linked to
slower recovery from such conditions. A research study revealed that people suffering from a
common cold but portraying happier emotions had a higher ability to fight off the cold in
contrast to people who were always sad or angry. Another study on students during an exam
period revealed that production of T-cells and their responses to mitogens was lower during the
entire examination period. Additionally, self-reports of diseases such as upper-respiratory-tract
infections occurrences were high (Lală, Bobîrnac, & Tipa, 2010).
The field of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has also raised concerns over whether stress causes
depression or the other way round. Determining which among the two plays a major role in
reducing the immune response of PNI, therefore, proves to be difficult. Stress can display itself
in many forms. Anxiety, depression, and various life events are some significant causes of stress
(Anisman, Hayley, & Kusnecov, 2018). Stress, on the other hand, has a potential of triggering
significant depressive disorders. There are various explanations that have been brought forth to
show how stress impacts the brain’s pleasure pathways and moods to causes stress. Exposure to
stress causes hyper-activeness of the glucocorticoid hormone which in turn results to the

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lowering of the levels of norepinephrine present in locus cerulean neurons (Anisman, Hayley, &
Kusnecov, 2018). Subsequently, affected individuals display slowed attentiveness, lack of
emotions and inactiveness.
Significant evidence has also proved that patients suffering from schizophrenia take relatively
long periods of time to heal after major surgeries. During all stages of Sigmoidectomy and
hemicolectomy surgeries, the blood of 25 schizophrenia patients was tested for the levels of
plasma interleukin (Müller, Myint, & Schwarz, 2015). It was subsequently found out that after
surgery, schizophrenic patients exhibited lower levels of Plasma IL-8. Additionally, all
schizophrenic patients had lower concentrations of plasma cortisol during surgery. It was
therefore concluded that cytokine in schizophrenic patients had a lower ability to fight
inflammations. These results can be explained with the existence of hypothalamus-pituitary-
adrenal dysfunction in schizophrenic patients. The immune system has, therefore, close
interactions with the endocrine system.
The impacts of dispositional optimism on the immune system are mixed. This is a definition
brought forth by generalized affirmative prospects of the future, more so for diseases that have a
potential of being immunologically mediated, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS (Chida, Hamer, &
Steptoe, 2008). Results from both naturalistic and experimental studies have revealed that
significant measures of cellular immunity are negatively related to optimism in the presence of
difficult stressors. On the other side, a positive relationship exists when the stressors are easy.
Violation of the positive expectations and subsequent disappointments of optimistic people have
been the main known cause of a negative relationship between immunity and optimism.
However, researchers have stated that the negative relationship could be caused more by greater
engagement of a pessimist in times of difficult stressors. Negative moods, for example, have

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little contribution to the effect while on the other side, a personality facet such as
conscientiousness directly impacts the optimism-immune relationship.
It can, therefore, be concluded that an individual's psychological state indeed affects their
immune system. This essay has defined the immune system as an interaction of cellular products
with the cells. The white blood cells have been further identified as the key role players in the
immune system. Further on, an inscription of the various psychological conditions that affect the
functionality of the immune system has been made. Stress has been identified as a key
psychological condition that affects the response of the immune system to various diseases. The
various ways through which stress interacts with the immune system to lower its functioning
capacity have also been inscribed. Depression and optimism are other mental states that affect
the immune responses to diseases. As such, their modes of action have also been
comprehensively discussed.

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References
Anisman, H., Hayley, S., & Kusnecov, A. (2018). The Immune System and Mental Health.
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Beck, R. W. (2011). Functional Neurology for Practitioners of Manual Medicine (2 ed.).
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Chida, Y., Hamer, M., & Steptoe, A. (2008). Do stress-related psychosocial factors contribute to
cancer incidence and survival? Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 5(8).
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Glaser, R., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2014). Handbook of Human Stress and Immunity. Elsevier
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Hjemdahl, P., Rosengren, A., & Steptoe, A. (2011). Stress and Cardiovascular Disease
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Lală, A., Bobîrnac, G., & Tipa, R. (2010, May 25). Stress levels, Alexithymia, Type A and Type
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Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3019056/
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Müller, N., Myint, A.-M., & Schwarz, M. J. (2015). Immunology and Psychiatry: From Basic
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Ranchor, A. V., Sanderman, R., & Coyne, J. C. (2010). Invited Commentary: Personality as a
Causal Factor in Cancer Risk and Mortality—Time to Retire a Hypothesis? American

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journal of epidemiology, 172(4). Retrieved from
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/172/4/386/85699