One of the most prominent environmental risk factors described for numerous diseases is chronic exposure to stressful situations. – “Chronic stress and individual vulnerability,” Schmidt MV, Sterlemann V, Müller MB, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, December 2008, 1148, 174-183. Is it really true that autoimmune diseases become more active in response to stress? There are a handful of related but distinct faulty causal inferences about stress and illness in much of the literature on autoimmune disorders. From work on stressful life events and multiple sclerosis relapse (footnote 1), to reports of stress-related onset and exacerbations of Graves…
in which, with respect to our name, we are as confused as you are
By Katelyn Sack
Katelyn Sack is a writer, painter, musician, nanny, medical botany researcher, and political economist residing in Charlottesville. Her recent work has appeared in the UK Guardian, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Science Creative Quarterly, Yankee Pot Roast, and Opium Magazine online.