The Adverse Effects of Psychological Stress on Immunoregulatory Balance: Applications to Human Inflammatory Diseases

Psychological stress has known effects on the immune system, including impacting effector and regulatory components. This can result in increased susceptibility to various infections, latent virus reactivation, and impact on immunoregulatory circuits. One of the great challenges in translational research is defining the risks associated with stress in specific patient populations and individuals. Future studies must include identification and validation of biomarkers that can categorize patient risk for adverse immune effects from various forms and degrees of psychological stress and how this impacts the course of their inflammatory disease.