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SALT LAKE CITY -- It's called social stress and UCLA researchers are linking it to social rejection. They say feelings of rejection can lead to chronic illness.
What happens in our lives affects how we feel and what our bodies feel.
–Dr. Mary Tipton
Scientists subjected 124 healthy young adults to socially stressful situations and measured their saliva for a response. What they found was physical responses that they say could be linked to chronic inflammation, like asthma, arthritis, heart disease, depression, and some types of cancer.
Dr. Mary Tipton with Copperview Medical Center says, "What happens in our lives affects how we feel and what our bodies feel."
Tipton says if her patients complain of symptoms like fever, chills, a new cough, she's also asking them, "What's been going on lately at home?" "Has something changed in your life?"
Researchers say these physical symptoms are your body's way of handling social rejection.
"When you look at people with chronic illnesses or uncontrolled illnesses or a flare of their chronic illness," Tipton explains, "then a lot of times you see that they have something going on in their life."
Tipton also says things like divorce, job loss, or a new school can trigger these flare-ups.
"All sorts of other diseases and problems that you might not think have such a link to our minds," she says.
Tipton also says it's important patients recognize their outside triggers when coping with physical ailments.
E-mail: niyamba@ksl.com
