Shannon just finished finals and is heading home for winter break, excited for all the Holiday activities her family has planned. It was a really stressful week and she just wants to get home to her family and friends. The day after finals Shannon wakes up feeling very sick with a cold, sore throat and upset stomach, probably the flu. Her father says the stress from finals probably caught up with
her and she just needs to rest. What do you think? Is Shannon’s father right? Could stress have caused her to get sick? If not, why not? If so, what mechanisms were at play?
What will be an ideal response?
It is possible that stress can be part of the problem. Increased stress causes a raise in the levels of cortisol in the
blood and cortisol can actually decrease antibody production, lymphocyte proliferation, and reduce the activity of
natural killer cells. If she had been exposed to some pathogen like the flu virus, it is possible that the effects of the
sympathetic nervous system could have suppressed symptoms while elevated, but also reduced the effectiveness of
the immune system, so when the sympathetic rush was over after finals, she started to noticed the signs of her
infection.
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