Allostatic Load

Allostatic Load - As selye noted, the initial respon se of the body to stressful  circumstances may be arousal, but over time this response may give way to exhaustion, leading to comulative damage to to the organism, Building on these ideas, researchers have developed the concept allostatic load (McEwen & Stellar, 1993). This concept refers to the fact that physiological systems within the body fluctuate to meer demands from stress, a state called allostasis. Over time, allostatic load builds up, which in defined as the physiological costs of chronic exposure to fluctuating or heightened neural or neuroendocrineresponse that results from repeated or chronic.

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Allostatic Load

This buildup of allostatic load that is, the longterm costs of chronic or repeated stress can  be assessed by a number of indicators (T. E. Seeman, Singer, Horwitz & McEwen, 1997). These include decreases in cellmediated immunity, the inability to shut off cortisol in response to stress, lowered heart rate variability, elevated  epinephrine levels, a high waist to hip ratio, volume of the hippocampus (which is believed to decrease with repeated stimulation of the HPA), problems with memory (an indirect measure of hippocampal functioning), high plasma fibrinogen, and elevated blood pressure. Many of these changes occur normally with age, so to the extent that they occur early, allostatic load may be thought of as accelerated aging of the organism in response to stress. Over time, this kind of wear and tear can lead to illness. These effects may be exacerbated by the poor health habits practiced by people under chronic stress. The damage due to chronic stress. The damage due to chronic or repeated stress is only  made worse if people also cope with stress via higher fat diet, less frequent exercise, and smoking, all of which stress can encourage (Ng & Jeffery, 2003).

The physiology of stress and, in particular, the recent research on the cumulative adverse effects off stress are important because they suggest the pathways by which stress exerts adverse on the body ultimately contributing to the likelihood of desease. The relationship of stress, both short and long term, to both acute disorders such as infection, and chronic disease is now so well etabilished that stress is implicated in most deseases, either  in their etiology, their course, or both. We explorer these processes more fully when we address different disease such as heart desease and hypertension in chapter 13 and cancer and arthritis in chapter 14. At this point, suffice it to say, stress is one of the major risk factors for desease that humans encounter.