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A comparison of changes in secretory immunoglobulin A following a stress‐inducing and stress‐reducing task
Author(s) -
Benham Grant,
Nash Michael R.,
Baldwin Debora R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
stress and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1532-2998
pISSN - 1532-3005
DOI - 10.1002/smi.1225
Subject(s) - psychology , mental stress , saliva , stress (linguistics) , task (project management) , psychological stress , relaxation (psychology) , stress reduction , antibody , developmental psychology , audiology , medicine , immunology , clinical psychology , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics , management , economics
Abstract Research suggests that the immune system may be adversely affected by chronic stress. There is some evidence that relaxation‐based practices may effect an increase in immune functioning, but recent findings suggest that acute stress may lead to similar increases. Given this, we used a counterbalanced within‐subjects design to directly compare the effects of a stressful mental arithmetic task and a relaxation‐based task on secretory immunoglobulin A (S‐IgA). Thirty participants were seen in small groups of two or three where they were administered both a mental arithmetic (stress) task and a relaxing hypnosis task. Four‐minute timed saliva samples were obtained immediately following the two experimental tasks and following two baseline periods. Results demonstrated that, compared with baseline, S‐IgA concentration and secretion rate were significantly higher following both the relaxation‐based task and stress task. Additionally, our data showed that the increases were short‐lived, decreasing significantly within 8 min following the completion of each task. Our results indicate that both stress‐reducing and stress‐inducing tasks can increase S‐IgA levels, and these results are discussed with reference to the potential differential mechanisms and clinical significance of such changes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.