Despite our best efforts to replicate hormones, slow the ageing process and map the human brain, our bodies are smarter than we'll likely ever understand. But not everything is so complex. When we're feeling tired, stressed or rundown, our bodies let us know with some very basic signals. Ignore them at your peril writes Rosalind Scutt.
In a perfect world we'd live long, healthy lives, free from illness and disease. Although developments in medical science are bringing us closer to that point, there is still much we do not understand about our own physiology — how it works, and why it breaks down.
While we're waiting for research to unlock the secrets to infinitely good health, it's reassuring to know that very often, before our bodies do malfunction, we're likely to see some obvious warning signs associated with a weakening immune system. Some common physical symptoms include sweating, headaches, cold sores, thrush and other skin inflammation such as eczema, while emotional symptoms include feelings of irritability, anxiety, aggression or fatigue.
These indicators should serve as a serious warning that we require additional rest and care, but many of us are inclined to take a cold and flu tablet and solider on. Valiant though this may seem, a growing body of research suggests that this approach may jeopardise our health in the long term — with potentially fatal consequences.
Earlier this year a study titled Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk found that stress affects the body's ability to protect against illness by directly impacting the immune system.
In particular, the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that cortisol (a hormone produced during times of stress) temporarily suppresses the immune system and reduces the body's natural inflammatory response to viruses and bacteria.
"The immune system's ability to regulate inflammation predicts who will develop a cold, but more importantly it provides an explanation of how stress can promote disease," lead researcher, Sheldon Cohen, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh said.
"When under stress, cells of the immune system are unable to respond to hormonal control, and consequently, produce levels of inflammation that promote disease. Because inflammation plays a role in many diseases such as cardiovascular, asthma and autoimmune disorders, this model suggests why stress impacts them as well."
Dr Mark Smyth of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia's only public hospital solely dedicated to cancer treatment, research and education agrees.
"Proper immune function is now appreciated as another important factor in preventing development of some cancers," he said.
Understanding more about how stress can impact our immune system may help us learn to listen to our bodies and recognise when they are telling us to slow down. And while maintaining a healthy immune system can help to prevent an individual from contracting disease, it is also hoped that immunotherapy can one day be used to treat and manage existing disease.
"We may one day be able to use immunotherapy to artificially induce equilibrium and convert cancer into a chronic, but controllable disease," Smyth said.
So, next time you feel the itch of a re-occurring rash, the twitch of a cold sore, or general malaise associated with ongoing fatigue, stop and listen to your body.
A course of antibiotics may solve your problem in the short term, but your body is really telling you it needs some urgent nurturing attention — and if Cohen's findings are correct, that attention could be the all that stands between you a life of blissful longevity.
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