This is from a Discovery blog about an upcoming paper in Annual Review of Psychology "If you’ve read the psychological, psychiatric and medical scientific literature over the last several decades, you might already be aware of these "secrets." If not, they’ve been nicely summarized in a paper to appear in the next issue of Annual Review of Psychology, in which Sheldon Cohen, Michael L.M. Murphy and Aric A. Prather analyze (in no particular order) what they call the "Ten surprising facts about stressful life events and disease risk." "6. Disease might come before the stress. While some evidence supports the notion that stress can initiate various diseases, this may not be the case in truly healthy people. "Rather, events may influence risk for disease by either suppressing the body’s ability to fight invading pathogens or exacerbating the progression of ongoing premorbid processes," Cohen and colleagues write. What looks like a disease triggered by stress "may actually be stressor-triggered progression of previously unidentified disease." So in some cases stress might not be responsible for the disease itself, just for making a previously unnoticed disease worse." http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/09/18/how-stress-affects-health-sickness/#.W6MBhLm0VIG
A rather fluffy, waffly article, containing a few of my favourite alarm-bell phrases such as: And when something isn't beyond doubt, it's all maybe, possibly, "iffy" (yes, he really said "iffy"), "much remains to be learned" non-commital waffle. Here's another "secret" you may not be aware of: 6. Horse might come before the cart.
Some cases.. Will they ever have the guts to say most cases? Or even better. How about the disease process is altering the ability of someone to deal with stress, i.e. affecting how their brain responds to stress? Oh, sorry. That's probably too much for psychology to handle at once.
Aww, I SO hoped it would be a USEFUL article. Love your comments everyone! Funny, AND saved me wasting precious brain power on it. "So in some cases stress might not be responsible for the disease itself, just for making a previously unnoticed disease worse." Oh dear. Obviously. There must be decent articles out there - decent, scientific ones, not waffly cruddly ones - that support this idea? I'm sure I've read a couple, not dreamt them? Umm.