When a person thinks or talks about any offensive or annoying things and situations, the level of inflammation markers rises in his body, according to doctors from the University of Ohio in Athens (USA).
The results of their research will soon be presented at the annual conference of the American Psychosomatic Society in Miami.
University associate professor and psychologist Peggy Zokkola and colleagues found that when volunteers were asked to experience an exciting event in the laboratory, plasma C-reactive protein levels increased. This protein is an indicator of inflammation in body tissues, that is, roughly speaking, the higher the concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP) in the human body, the more sick it is.
This is the first study to establish the relationship between bad memories and inflammatory processes in those parts of the body that "cannot think." It has previously been shown that certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression, even mild ones, that do not require hospitalization or outpatient treatment "on sick leave", have an effect on the concentration of C-reactive protein in the blood. Or ailments that manifest themselves in rejection and / or anger.
34 people took part in the experiment of Dr. Zokkola, these are young, healthy women. All of them were asked to interact with two interviewers, as if the ladies were taking jobs. And not just to talk, but to tell something good and not so good about yourself, while people in white coats listened to volunteers with stone faces. Such a "conversation with the wall" even in the most mentally adequate person can cause a stressful reaction.
After the "execution," half of the subjects were told to "relive" their performance in their minds again, and the other half were told to remember something positive, for example, a trip on a yacht or a successful purchase in a store. Then both of them took blood for analysis. The doctors found that the concentration of CRP in plasma was significantly higher in those who, at the request of the researchers, thought about their public speech, deliberately coldly received by the examiners. The inflammation marker continued to rise for an hour after talking about its pros and cons.
For those who, after stress, switched to talking about shopping and other amenities, the concentration of C-reactive protein quickly dropped to normal values.
The main source of CRP in the human body is the liver. Any severe mental shock, injury, injury or infection provokes the release of excess amounts of this protein. Therefore, its concentration in the blood, like ESR, serves as a marker of any inflammatory process and a criterion for predicting the development of the disease.
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People whose C-reactive protein levels are constantly high are at risk of developing heart disease, from which you can die. Doctors from the UK believe that such an anomaly of immunity can be inherited.