Stress express

      When the adrenalin starts pumping, it's not just your body that
responds.

      Stress is known to dampen the immune system. Now researchers
have
shown that it can also directly affect disease-causing bacteria.
Tesfaye
Belay and his colleagues at the Morehouse School of Medicine in
Atlanta,
Georgia, cultured two species of pneumonia bacteria with and without
the
human stress hormones adrenalin and noradrenalin. Both strains grew
faster
when one of them was present, reaching concentrations 4000 times
higher than
controls in a day, Belay reported at the American Society for
Microbiology
meeting in Los Angeles.

      This suggests that stress hormones can help infections take
hold,
Belay says. "When people are injured, for example, they have a big
increase
in hormones."

      From New Scientist magazine, 27 May 2000.