Does emotional stress cause ill health?
I mentioned Mrs M’s long list of diagnoses in my last post; and today we went through her timeline together.
Up until the age of 45 Mrs M was physically ‘fine’, she had a healthy childhood and was a healthy and happy teenager. When I looked at her timeline I could see a large gap between the ages of 17 [appendectomy] and 45. At the age of 45 Mrs M was diagnosed with cancer, Coeliac disease and hypothyroid, and the diagnoses of Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjgren’s and Lupus – all autoimmune conditions – followed one after the other right up to her 60s.
I looked up at her. ‘What happened in the gap?’ I asked. ‘Were you perfectly well for 30 years?
‘Well,’ she was considering her words. ‘I wasn’t ill exactly, but I did live with a violent husband…’
As she explained her life with an abusive man [which included being attacked with an axe] I realised that this woman had undergone extreme trauma over a long period of time. Such was the violence of her husband that she spent time in a women’s safe house with her three children. This man subjected her to beatings and verbal onslaughts for 10 years until he was legally barred from the house and she could divorce him.
But that was not the end…
Her next husband had appeared to be stable and kind, but after their marriage she found out that he was a schizophrenic, and also violent. The following 10 years she described as truly ‘traumatic’. Following her divorce from her second abusive husband, she started a new relationship at the age of 40.
However…
A short time into this relationship she discovered that her third husband was an alcoholic ‘I do seem to pick the wrong type of man,’ she said. Although this man was the love of her life, when he was drunk he was also violent. She left this relationship when she was 60.
So, from the age of 19 [when she was first married] until the age of 60 [when she divorced her last husband] Mrs M had been subjected to threats and violence almost continuously for 40 years.
Could the almost constant trauma in this gap of physical ‘good health’ have had any part to play in the sudden raft of illnesses grouped together between the ages of 45 and 60?
Did the trauma affect her gut in such a way that it promoted intestinal permeability, thus precipitating an onslaught on her immune system, making her at risk of a raft of autoimmune conditions?
I considered two things:
1. Altering the diet. The gut has its own nervous system, and messages pass continuously between our gut and our brain. When we are anxious and nervous it can often result in a bout of diarrhoea. When we are depressed, it may result in constipation. We have a large part of our immune system in our gut which is affected by our gut microbiome. Beneficial bacteria keep our immune system healthy, unbeneficial bacteria inhibit the efficient working of our immune system [and our nervous system, and our digestive system…].
It seems obvious that it is necessary to build up a really healthy gut microbiome by eating foods that feed it, and excluding foods that increase the unbeneficial bacteria. Any foods that provoke irritation on the gut wall should also be identified and eliminated.
2. Heal the gut wall. If it is true that stress contributed to intestinal permeability [commonly referred to as leaky gut] in this patient, then it is imperative that this is addressed. Now in her 70s Mrs M is in a happy place, but the years of trauma have done their damage and before we can really address her diagnoses, we must pay attention to her gut wall [all the junctions between the cells of the gut lining need tightening up]. Fortunately we have herbs that can do this.
Because we had time to talk about factors that had influenced her health over decades, we were able to reflect on emotional issues that had possibly had a profound effect on her physical health. This isn’t ‘new age’ thinking. Psychoneuroimmunology is a field of study which looks at the interactions between psychological processes, the nervous system and the immune system. The conclusions of many studies have been that;
Chronic stress affects significantly the function of the immune system.1
This means that chronic stress can make us ill. Not just with disorders that are assumed to be affected by ‘nerves’, but cancer and autoimmune conditions that one wouldn’t normally associate with the nervous system.
‘…the onset of at least 50% of autoimmune disorders has been attributed to “unknown trigger factors”. Physical and psychological stress has been implicated in the development of autoimmune disease, since numerous animal and human studies demonstrated the effect of sundry stressors on immune function.’2
If I had just been happy to ‘treat the disease’, I would have missed the point. I would have missed the deep, underlying fabric of the story of Mrs M’s ill health. My conclusion was that I am not initially going to target specific diseases.
Instead I will begin by overhauling her diet, and healing her gut wall. Diet is such a big factor in health that I think this will take some time to unravel as it can get complicated. I hope Mrs M stays with me for the journey…
1 Psychoneuroimmunology.F. Tausk, I. Elenkov, J. Moynihan. Dermatol Ther. Jan-Feb 2008;21 (1):22-31
2 Stress as a trigger of autoimmune disease. L. Stojanovich, D. Marisavljevich. Autoimmunity Reviews. Volume 7, Issue 3, January 2008, Pages 209-213
