Psychological stress and the human immune system: a meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Meta-analysis of primarily observational, naturalistic, and laboratory stress studies in humans
PubMed 15250815 · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.130.4.601
What was done
Meta-analysis of more than 300 empirical articles over 30 years examining the relationship between psychological stress and human immune parameters across different stressor durations (acute laboratory, brief naturalistic, event sequences, and chronic stressors).
What was found
The abstract reports no numeric values, effect sizes, or confidence intervals. Acute stressors (minutes) were associated with upregulation of some natural immunity parameters and downregulation of specific immunity functions. Brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral immunity measures. Event sequence effects differed between trauma and loss. Subjective reports of stress generally did not associate with immune change, while physical vulnerability (age or disease) increased vulnerability to immune change during stressors in some cases.
Why it matters
It establishes that psychological stress does not uniformly suppress the immune system, but rather alters immune function differentially depending on stressor duration and chronicity.
Limits
The abstract provides no effect sizes, statistical metrics, or participant sample sizes. The underlying studies comprise heterogeneous stress paradigms and observational contexts, and subjective stress was generally not associated with immune changes.
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