As we have been learning in class, long-term stress can cause our bodies to respond in strange ways. I am a very anxious person, and I used to get sick after pretty much every exam, which got me thinking. My post-exam vomiting was probably a response to my long-term stress.
As a reminder, stress is defined as an acute physical or psychological threat to an organism's homeostasis. Long-term stress can increase disease risk and affect the long-term function of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract (Best, 2015). The GI tract is a complex, multi-organ system that maintains homeostasis through selective permeability, which allows organisms to absorb nutrients and excrete waste (Leigh et al., 2023). Studies have indicated that chronic psychological stress can increase intestinal permeability in humans (Leigh et al., 2023). Increased intestinal permeability suggests less filtration of what enters the bloodstream from the intestines. Most research found that stress led to problems with waste excretion, causing watery diarrhea or no output at all (Leigh et al., 2023). But this still didn't explain why I was getting sick from stress. However, a literature review referenced a study on GERD/GORD that found people diagnosed with GERD, when exposed to a stressor, reported immediate heartburn and higher systolic blood pressure, which was not seen in the control group (Best, 2015). The study demonstrates that the group diagnosed with GERD would experience heartburn and, along with stress symptoms, when exposed to stressors. This is interesting because stress can affect everyone's body differently, and it's also important to recognize clinically. This topic should serve as an example of why it is important to look at the whole person instead of focusing only on the problem, because the body is interconnected.
As someone who is diagnosed with GERD, I think it's interesting how stress can affect other illnesses that appear to have nothing to do with emotions. This whole time I have been focused on my trigger foods when I should have also been paying attention to my stress management.
Best, C. (2015). Examining the extent to which stress contributes to disease in the gastrointestinal tract: A literature review. Gastrointestinal Nursing, 13(2), 16–21. https://doi.org/10.12968/gasn.2015.13.2.16
Leigh, S.-J., Uhlig, F., Wilmes, L., Sanchez-Diaz, P., Gheorghe, C. E., Goodson, M. S., Kelley-Loughnane, N., Hyland, N. P., Cryan, J. F., & Clarke, G. (2023). The impact of acute and chronic stress on gastrointestinal physiology and function: A microbiota-gut-brain axis perspective. The Journal of Physiology, 601(20), 4491–4538. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP281951
Thank you for sharing this information about the GI tract and stress, and some of your personal experiences as well. I hope writing exams has gotten easier and less physically taxing for you. Your post reminded me of learning about the enteric nervous system that lines the GI tract in my anatomy class last semester. I think it's even sometimes called the "second brain" of the body because it can conduct nerve impulses independently of the central nervous system. I wonder how it responds to acute stress and if it has its own pathways. It might be something to look into if you are interested in doing more research on this topic!
ReplyDeleteYour topic is very interesting. I knew that exams cause stress, as we all experience as students, but it's fascinating to learn exam make people sick. It was interesting to learn that long-term stress affects the GI tract by increasing intestinal permeability, resulting in the intestine being less effective at controlling what passes into the bloodstream. This makes me wonder: how can we determine whether the GI symptoms experienced before or after the exam are caused by the stress and not other factors like lack of sleep or diet? I also wonder what happens at the physiological level that causes some people to get sick while other people are fine? I am little confuse whether stress makes GERD worse or whether it makes individuals more sensitive to GERD symptoms like heart burn and high systolic blood pressure?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing something so personal! Not quite the same, but I used to deal with some pretty extreme test taking anxiety as well, which caused me to enter full blown fight or flight panic mode in the middle of it and make me super nauseous - VERY inconvenient. It is interesting to hear about why this happens and how stress is related to the GI system.
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