This study (ntotal = 35) compared early life stress ratings, parental relationships, and health status, notably orthostatic blood pressures, of middle-aged women with low-level chemical intolerance (CI group) and depression, depressives without CI (DEP group), and normals. Environmental chemical intolerance is a symptom of several controversial conditions in which women are overrepresented, that is, sick building syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Previous investigators have postulated that people with CI have variants of somatization disorder, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) initiated by childhood abuse or a toxic exposure event. One neurobehavioral model for CI, somatization disorder, recurrent depression, and PTSD is neural sensitization, that is, the progressive amplification of host responses (e.g., behavioral, neurochemical) to repeated intermittent stimuli (e.g., drugs, chemicals, endogenous mediators, stressors). Females are more vulnerable to sensitization than are males. Limbic and mesolimbic pathways mediate central nervous system sensitization. Although both CI and DEP groups had high levels of life stress and past abuse, the CI group had the most distant and weak paternal relationships and highest limbic somatic dysfunction subscale scores. Only the CI group showed sensitization of sitting blood pressures over sessions. Together with prior evidence, these data are consistent with a neural sensitization model for CI in certain women. The findings may have implications for poorer long-term medical as well as neuropsychiatric health outcomes of a subset of women with CI. Subsequent research should test this model in specific clinical diagnostic groups with CI.
A 35-year prospective study was undertaken in 126 former college students to determine the predictive value of psychophysiological patterns previously recorded in response to repetitive laboratory stress experiments. Detailed health information has been obtained in 116 (92.1%) of these subjects. The emotion of "severe anxiety" expressed in one or more of the prior tests appeared to be a reliable marker for increased susceptibility not only to coronary heart disease but to overall future illness. This form of pathological anxiety, moreover, was frequently shown to be linked to marked conflict about hostile impulses. Contrariwise, neither anger-in nor anger-out was found to be associated with a higher incidence of subsequent disease. Failure to express emotion was observed in a variety of subjects who as a group exhibited no predisposition to sickness in later life. Psychological Mastery was predictive of favorable prognosis, but Physiological Mastery, contrary to expectations, did not show statistically significant advantages in that regard. Thus, the construct of "Mastery" itself as a determinant of prognosis was not fully supported by the findings in the present study. Cardiovascular hyperreactivity could not be confirmed as a major biologic mechanism responsible for cardiovascular disease. Such hyperresponses were common in association with "anger-in" without evidence of increased susceptibility to cardiovascular disease or other forms of illness. Further research is needed to identify pathophysiological pathways that may be activated by the emotion of severe anxiety in mediating its apparent relationship with total morbidity and mortality over time.
In the early 1950s, multiple-choice scores reflecting feelings of warmth and closeness with parents were obtained from a sample of healthy, undergraduate Harvard men who participated in the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study. Thirty-five years later, detailed medical and psychological histories and medical records were obtained. Ninety-one percent of participants who did not perceive themselves to have had a warm relationship with their mothers (assessed during college) had diagnosed diseases in midlife (including coronary artery disease, hypertension, duodenal ulcer, and alcoholism), as compared to 45% of participants who perceived themselves to have had a warm relationship with their mothers. A similar association between perceived warmth and closeness and future illness was obtained for fathers. Since parents are usually the most meaningful source of social support in early life, the perception of parental love and caring may have important effects on biological and psychological health and illness throughout life.
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