Influences of stress hormones on microbial infections.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing mechanistic and pre-clinical concepts without original clinical data or systematic review methodology.
PubMed 30981718 · doi:10.1016/j.micpath.2019.04.013
What was done
This narrative review synthesizes literature in microbial endocrinology, focusing on how host stress hormones—specifically catecholamines such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine—influence bacterial growth, virulence gene expression, biofilm formation, and host susceptibility across settings including aquaculture and the gut-brain axis.
What was found
The abstract reports purely qualitative conceptual summaries without quantitative effect sizes or numerical data. It describes that catecholamines stimulate bacterial growth and virulence-associated factors (mediated in part by siderophores and ferric iron transport systems), enhance adhesion and biofilm formation, and suppress host immune responses.
Why it matters
It highlights the bidirectional interaction between host neuroendocrine stress pathways and microbial pathogenesis, offering a mechanistic perspective on how physiological stress increases infection vulnerability.
Limits
As a non-systematic narrative review, it lacks formal study selection criteria, risk-of-bias evaluation, and quantitative pooling. The abstract provides no specific empirical figures, sample sizes, or pathogen-specific effect estimates.
Cited by
- supports Certain pathogenic bacteria express virulence factors and increase toxin production in response to host stress hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol.