The co-morbidity of stress and disease: effects of chronic stress on metabolism, cardiovascular disease and behavior.

摘要

Physiologic responses to acute stress contribute to maintenance of overall homeostasis, and are necessary for survival. The appropriate interplay between the sympathetic nervous system (and associated neuropeptides) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis keeps the system primed to keep responding to isolated stressors. In contrast, chronic stress has been shown to dysregulate the systems responding to stress, and is rapidly becoming thought of as a key contributor to the development and progression of metabolic, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and psychological diseases. The objective of this symposium was to bring together work from both classic and more recent stress mechanisms, and highlight the ways chronic stress can exacerbate development of diseases.