Asthma seems to be influenced by stress hormones, our most recent understanding of the role of emotions in the disease. "Stress hormone responses" are at the center of new research on the endocrine system, immune system, and nervous system and the new field of psychoneuroimmunology. If stress causes shifts in the body's production of cortisol, adrenalin, or other signaling substances--or if allergic or asthmatic individuals respond to those signals differently from non-allergic individuals--then we may be able to explain how anxiety may affect the course of asthma through the anti-inflammatory stress hormone cortisol.
Artist's concept of the hormonal stress response. When a person is stressed, the brain and glands like the adrenals make hormones, including cortisol, that can affect allergic diseases like asthma.
Sue Goetinck
"Contents Under Pressure," Dallas Morning News,
November 17, 1997
Reprinted, by permission,
from The Dallas Morning News