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Anxiety and Autoimmune Diseases. Is there a connection?

Anxiety

Anxiety and Autoimmune Diseases. Is there a connection?

In many patients, an intense event in their life, an experience that affected them emotionally, is pretty often associated with the period before the diagnosis of an Autoimmune Disease.

Almost always, Autoimmune Diseases are accompanied by intense mood swings that fuel the disease and worsen its clinical picture.

The intense rhythm of everyday life, stress, anxiety, the modern way of life but also the financial crisis can be blamed for the outbreak of Autoimmune Diseases.

Health experts estimate that Autoimmune Diseases present a significant increase in recent years worldwide. Of course, we cannot say that these diseases are caused only by poor psychology and stress, but there is important evidence for the role of the psychological factor in autoimmunity.

People suffering from stress-related disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder have an increased chance of developing an Autoimmune Disease, according to a new research.

Stress can significantly affect our quality of life. While the conventional medical approach focuses on balancing neurotransmitters in the brain, the approach of Modern Medicine is to look for the root of the problem. Modern Medicine seeks out and treats the underlying causes of Chronic Diseases.

Modern life is accompanied by perpetual stress, pushing our body into a constant state of emergency, which has a real impact on human health. Psychological perception translates directly into specific physiological consequences.

There is a close relationship between body and mind, so what we call stress and anxiety is subject to the same biochemical mechanisms in the body. Your thoughts affect your physiology and your physiology affects your mental state, which is why stress is so closely associated with autoimmune disorders.

Stress has also been shown to cause changes in the microorganisms that live in our gut and promote the assimilation of nutrients, detoxification, regulation of intestinal barrier function and “training” of the immune system as to what constitutes a friend or foe.

According to researchers, “neuroendocrine” hormones caused by stress lead to suppression of the immune system, which ultimately  can lead to autoimmune disease, altering or enhancing the production of cytokines, cellular messengers involved in the pathophysiology of an autoimmune disease.

Thus, we have to recognize the complex connection between our body and our psychology, so as to include the treatment of an autoimmune disease and therapeutic interventions on neurotransmitters aimed at restoring this level of cellular balance as well.

 

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