Immune system test shows coping skills not a magic pill
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By Mark Andersen/Lincoln Journal Star
Feeling stressed?
It may help to talk, exercise or meditate.
Look at things from a new perspective.
But do these strategies help with killer stress?
People in the throes of chronic stress often say yes, said Kevin Lancer, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln counselor.
Objective measures disagree.
The life assessment tests of chronically stressed people who have been taught coping skills show little improvement.
“They say they feel better,” Lancer said. But without a measurable benefit, nobody’s buying it.
Anything proven to diminish the bad health effects of stress — illness-causing chronic stress — would be a big deal. Up to 90 percent of doctor visits in the United States may be triggered by stress-related illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chronic stress is linked to stomach pain, obesity, respiratory illness, heart disease and depression, among other illnesses.
Lancer is testing whether something in the blood can verify what people say about coping skills — that they help. It’s part of his psychology doctoral thesis.
The study focuses on interleukin 6. This tiny immune system signaling protein plays important roles in the body’s response to burns, infections and trauma.
Proper amounts are critical. Too little and the immune system responds sluggishly. Too much is linked to osteoporosis, cancer, autoimmune system disorders, anxiety, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
Chronic stress, it appears, increases interleukin 6.
Testing a variety of stressed-out groups, researchers found family caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients had the most — up to four times that of peers.
Makes sense. With this disease, Lancer said, people are not only stretched to the limit but they’ve lost their spouse, their emotional support.
Dementia care in this country costs $100 billion per year, he said. Two-thirds of dementia patients receive care at home. Most caregivers would keep family members at home longer if the stress weren’t killing them, he said.
“So if you could keep caregivers healthier, make a biological difference,” he said, “we could take that and run.”
From a clinical viewpoint, stress has three stages.
The acute phase — imagine a bear barging into your bedroom. Breath quickens, skin perspires, muscles charge for fight or flight. The body also signals the immune system in case flight turns to fight.
Sustain this burst and eventually the body will begin to ignore the alarm. It takes a larger alarm signal to get the same response.
Continue the alarm for extended periods and the exhausted body not only ignores it but gets sick. You feel tired, depressed. Things hurt. Alzheimer’s family caregivers live with this.
Lancer hopes he’s developed a program that will help them.
The classic statement of someone caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s, a disease which rots memory and mind, Lancer said: “This is not what I thought I would be doing at this time in my life.”
They expected to retire, buy a camper and travel. All of them wish there were some magic force that could bring the person back, he said, and there isn’t.
Teaching this group coping skills helps them look differently at the problem. It helps them recognize they have options, although not the ones they thought they would have. It also offers tips that may make it easier to provide care.
Frequently, Lancer said, caregivers become frustrated when the person won’t shower. Understand, he tells them, “This person only occasionally recognizes you.” They don’t know where they are, he said. What they know: “There is a stranger in a strange room trying to take off their clothes.”
Lancer now runs support groups for Alzheimer’s caregivers in Las Vegas and in Lincoln. The difficulty, he said, is in finding family caregivers who have time or energy left to give. Typically, they’re so overwhelmed that even if they recognize the benefit, they can’t add one more thing to their plate, he said.
His is not a grandiose study, but it may contribute important information, said Douglas Ferraro, professor of psychology at UNLV.
“Part of the reason people report feeling better (after therapy),” Ferraro said, “is they’ve had so much attention paid to them.”
Behavioral signs of stress reduction — better sleep, eating — also mislead, because people react in different ways to stress. Some don’t sleep and some sleep more, some don’t eat and some eat more.
And all of it is self-reported.
“A much better way to go is a direct measure of the immune system,” Ferraro said.
Even if Lancer’s therapy does not help these patients, Ferraro said, if he proves only that Alzheimer’s caregivers have compromised immune systems, that would in itself be an important step.
“If these people have compromised immune systems, then that argues that we have to find some way to reduce their stress,” Ferraro said. “We can’t leave these people so totally compromised.”
Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@journalstar.com.
Caregiver stress
UNL dementia caregiver research offered. If interested, contact Kevin Lancer at 472-7514.
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