How Stress Can Make You Sick, ScienceDaily Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: (...) discovered how a hormone, known as neuropeptide Y (NPY), can prevent our immune system functioning properly (...). "Most of us expect to come down with a cold or other illness when we are under pressure, but until now we have mostly had circumstantial evidence for a link between the brain and the immune system", (...). "During periods of stress, nerves release a lot of NPY and it gets into the bloodstream, where it directly impacts on the cells in the immune system that look out for and destroy pathogens (bacteria and viruses) in the body," explains Mackay. (...)