Evaluation of health and social inequalities in occurrence of different types of chronic stress and their effect on immunoregulation

Mohammadreza Vaezmahdavi | Leila Nasiri | Tooba Ghazanfari

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URL :   http://research.shahed.ac.ir/WSR/WebPages/Report/PaperView.aspx?PaperID=158932
Date :  2021/07/01
Publish in :    Immunoregulation

Link :  http://immunoreg.shahed.ac.ir/article_3354_faa64ae50a7038b44c305a8f1ee64842.pdf
Keywords :Keywords: Social stress, Inequality, Poverty, Lipofuscin, Safety, Inflammatory Cytokines, Pain

Abstract :

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Inequality in health and its multiple dimensions, is an important aspect of social injustice. Several studies have shown that the mental and physical health in adulthood is not a phenomenon independent of one’s childhood. Those who have lower socioeconomic status in society, have a higher mortality and lower life expectancy. The role of Individualism and utilitarian pattern in the social relationships has led to the formation of a wide range of social instability, poverty, deprivation and inequality in societies. In addition to widespread social effects, they have made harmful consequences on the basic vital systems and organs through interference with multiple biological processes. In modern societies, people live in highly stressful situations, and multiples studies expressed a powerful link between increased prevalence of diseases and social-physiological stresses. Studies of both normal and experimental situations also showed significant effects on the immune response. Accordingly, increased incidence of invasive behaviors has been associated with increased cytokines and immune-cellular activity in animal studies. According to the stimulus type and contact duration, chronic stress influences both innate and acquired immune factors. Stress affects the immune system via activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, and shows an increasing effect in the innate immune agents such as monocyte, macrophage, and pro-inflammatory cytokines involving the increase of stress hormones (glucocorticoid-catecholamines). Chronic stress influences the acquired immune components by the change of immune cellular population, and the alteration of balance between immune cells and their secreted cytokines levels.