Modulation of immune response to rDNA hepatitis B vaccination by psychological stress

Abstract

Abstract-In a previous study it was shown that antibody formation after vaccination with a low-dose recombinant DNA (rDNA) hepatitis B vaccine was negatively influenced by psychological stress. The present study was designed to assess whether the same inverse relation between HBs-antibody levels and psychological stress could be observed, while administering the standard, and thus higher, dose of vaccine. Volunteers (n = 68) scoring extremely low or high on a combination of questionnaires measuring daily problems and psychoneurotic symptoms were selected for participation. Antibody levels were determined 2, 6, and 7 months after the first vaccination. Questionnaires were completed before entering the study and at month 6. In contrast to the previous study, psychological stress was not found to be related to the antibody levels at any timepoint. These results suggest that, under certain conditions, stress-induced immunomodulation in vivo might be dependent on antigen dose.

Antibody response to vaccination and psychosocial stress in humans: relationships and mechanisms

“…It is also difficult to attribute the relationship between the stress score and antibody response to any specific aspect of stress as the Stress Index was a composite measure calculated from a life events checklist and a questionnaire assessing psychological symptoms. A similar protocol carried out by these researchers using a standard vaccine dosage yielded no significant associations 8 between antibody status [39]. It is worth pointing out, however, that in this latter study there was no two month assessment of stress, which had predicted antibody response previously, and the six month measure of stress used was not associated with antibody status in their earlier study either.…”

“…There is increasing evidence now that the detrimental effects of stress may not be apparent until several months after vaccination [37,52,53,56], suggesting that the maintenance of antibody production might be more vulnerable to stress than initial antibody production. This may also explain some of the null findings [33,39] in which only short follow-ups have taken place. Indeed, there is growing evidence that acute stress may potentiate the initial antibody response [41,51,53,76].…”

Stress responses and innate immunity: aging as a contributory factor

“…This proposal is supported by data showing increased incidence of upper respiratory tract infections with psychological stress (Cohen et al ., 1999a;Glaser et al ., 1999;Takkouche et al ., 2001). To demonstrate the effect of psychological stress on immune function, medical students taking exams were assessed and the results showed that the level of stress correlated inversely with virus-specific antibody and T-cell responses to hepatitis B vaccine (Jabaaij et al ., 1996). Poor responses to vaccination agents can be taken as predictors of reduced responses to infecting pathogens and we would therefore predict that psychological stress would be associated with increased susceptibility to infection.…”

Assessment of Different Stressed Conditions Associated with Blood Group and WBCs among Medical Students and their Management with Anti-Oxidant Therapy and Yoga

“…Poverty is associated with weaker immune response. A higher STAI score was positively correlated with a weaker immune response, when administering the same antigen dose to the subjects [30,31] which can be linked with poverty associated high stress values. Vitamin C decreased stress level among students, reflected in STAI scores, more in high stressed group, followed by medium and low [11,12].…”