Shyness can be deadly( How you react to stress influences how ...)

How you react to stress influences how easily you resist or succumb to disease, including viruses like HIV, discovered UCLA AIDS Institute scientists. Reported in the Dec.15 edition of Biological Psychiatry, the new findings identify the immune mechanism that makes shy people more susceptible to infection than outgoing people.

"Since ancient Greece, physicians have noticed that persons with a 'melancholic temperament' are more vulnerable to viral infections," said Steve Cole, principal investigator and assistant professor of hematology-oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute.

"During the AIDS epidemic, researchers found that introverted people got sick and died sooner than extroverted people," said Bruce Naliboff, co-author and a clinical professor at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. "Our study pinpoints the biological mechanism that connects personality and disease."

The UCLA team studied the effect of stress on viral replication in a group of 54 HIV?infected men. All of the men were still in the early stages of the disease and in good health. Each possessed high T-cell counts with detectable levels of virus in the blood.

The researchers put each man through a series of stress tests in the lab to measure the response of their autonomic nervous system. First, the scientists monitored the subject's response to a tiny stimulus, such as an unexpected beeping sound. They measured his heart rate, skin moisture and dilation of the blood vessels, which contract during stress to reroute blood to the legs for fight or flight.

"Shy persons didn't adapt to the beeps as fast as other people," Cole said. "Their heightened nervous system response indicated that the sound was more irritating to them."

Next, each man was required to perform physical exercises, such as deep breathing or standing from a seated position, both of
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Contact: Elaine Schmidt
elaines@support.ucla.edu
310-794-2272
University of California - Los Angeles
15-Dec-2003

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