Learn how Stress impacts your Immune System

Stress is a part of life. There is no denying that in general, people are more stressed now than a few years ago. Each of us is living a faster and more pressure-filled life. While these realities cannot be easily avoided, we can take steps to control and lower our stress naturally. We know there is a direct connection between stress levels and immune system health

To put it simply, elevated, and constant chronic stress is not good for your immune system. When your stress levels are continually high, your body is not able to function properly, affecting your immune system and putting you at increased risk of illness. There are a number of conditions such as shingles, migraines, digestive problems, and hypertension that flare or become worse with stress. The good news is that we can take steps daily to lower our stress levels, which in turn supports our immune system and contributes to overall good health.

WHAT IS STRESS?

The Cleveland Clinic defines stress as the body’s reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Stress is a normal part of life. You can experience stress from your environment, your body, and your thoughts. Even positive life changes such as a promotion, a mortgage, or the birth of a child produce stress. There are two types of stress – good stress and bad stress.

Good Stress: this is the stress that provides us with motivation. Whether it’s going out for a walk, completing a work project, or any task that leaves you with a feeling of satisfaction.

Good stress has some key characteristics:

It doesn’t last long. Generally, the sensations from good stress are over in minutes or hours.
It encourages you to accomplish a big goal or motivates you to get something done.
It gives you a feeling of confidence and excitement.

Bad Stress: is the debilitating stress that can leave you feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and defeated. Bad stress or chronic stress can stop you from doing the things you need to in order to benefit from good stress. For example, bad stress can make it hard for you to study for an exam that you need to write to graduate or make you feel so ill that you can’t exercise.

Bad stress has some key characteristics:

It lasts a long time and can become a chronic illness.
It can stop you from doing the activities you enjoy and prevent you from spending time with friends and family.
It is exhausting, demoralizing, and depressing. Bad stress can leave you feeling stuck and unable to move forward.
It has severe physical and mental health consequences.

HOW STRESS IMPACTS YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM HEALTH

Your immune system is constantly working to protect you from bacteria, viruses, cancerous cells, and foreign bodies – all collectively known as antigens. White blood cells are the building blocks of your immune system and work to fight off antigens. When you’re stressed, we release a hormone called corticosteroid. This stress hormone suppresses the immune system, reducing the number of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell.

This then makes it difficult for your immune system to keep working to defend against antigens. In addition, how you deal with stress can have a negative impact on your immune system health. Some of us respond by eating unhealthy foods, skipping exercise, drinking, smoking, or staying up late and not sleeping. These stress-coping responses have their own negative impacts on the immune system, making it very challenging for an already hampered immune system to defend against antigens and illness.

HOW TO LOWER YOUR STRESS NATURALLY

To lower your stress naturally, consider incorporating these healthy habits into your routine:

Write it down. Dig out a notebook and a pen and start your day by writing down your plans for the day. Prioritize your list. At the end of the day, take a few minutes to write down how your day went. Just getting this information out of your head onto the page can help you sleep and stay more focused during the day.

Move your body. Get up from your desk and walk around the office. Open the door and breathe in the fresh air. Put on your shoes and go for a walk. The simple act of movement helps stimulate the immune system and triggers feel-good endorphins that can calm stress levels.

Get back to nature. Research confirms that being in nature does wonders for our mental health and immune system health. Have your lunch in a nearby park. Plan a hike on the weekend with friends. Go for a mountain bike ride and take time to watch the birds. Sit out on your front step and listen to the outdoors.

Take natural supplements. Stress places a huge burden on your immune system and can cause you to have gastrointestinal or cardiovascular problems, trigger migraines, cause shingles to flare, and make you susceptible to colds and flu. This is the last thing you need when you’re already stressed. Taking a natural supplement that supports immune system health can have trickle-down effects on the rest of your body, giving you the ability to heal and recover.
Recognize your stressors. Admittedly, this is easier said than done. But if you can identify your stressors, you have the power to make changes in your life. This could mean disconnecting from social media, reducing your workload, asking for extra help at home, or taking a step back from negative relationships.

HOW TO GET HELP MANAGING STRESS

If you or someone you know is burdened by stress or stress-related illness, do not delay – ask for help. Keep this list of crisis helpline phone numbers easily accessible. When in doubt, dial 2-1-1

Talk to your family doctor. Talk to a family member or friend. Call your local distress center. Do not try to tough it out – stress can be very dangerous.

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AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following observations:

All patients tolerated AHCC^® with no added symptoms
20 patients reported feeling better and stronger than before at the time of initiation of chemotherapy cycles
Almost all patients reported better appetites after they started to take AHCC^®
In 12 patients who required blood transfusions before chemotherapy cycles, a decrease in the rate of fall of hemoglobin was observed and only 3 patients subsequently required blood transfusions prior to chemotherapy
22 patients has a reduction of chemotherapy side effects like nausea, vomiting, loose motion/ constipation, etc.
Tumors regressed in 11 patients
8 patients stabilized

The AHCC^® group had the following significant differences compared with control group:

Longer non-recurrence period
Increased overall survival rate

The self-administration of AHCC^® resulted in a dramatic PSA decrease within 1 month, which continued to control his disease for over 6 months from initial supplementation with AHCC^®.

Using the national breast cancer patient registration as reference data, this retrospective study reported the improved prognosis of stage IV patients relative to the national average. Since the stage I-III patients at the center all had recurring cancer while the national average includes both recurring and non-recurring cancers, a meaningful comparison could not be made and the results were not statistically significant.

The following results were reported for patients supplemented with AHCC^® when compared with control group:

A significantly prolonged survival
Quality of life in terms of mental stability, general physical health status and the ability to have normal activities were significantly improved after 3 months of supplementation
Serum level of albumin and percentage of lymphocytes in blood, were significantly higher
Slightly increased levels of total IL-12 and neopterin

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes:

Changes in PSA before and after treatment were substantially stable
In patients for which expectant management had been continued for 6 months or more before the trial, a prolonged PSA doubling time (PSADT) was seen with AHCC^® administration – Prior to AHCC^®, 12/31 (39%) of patients had PSADT of 120 months or more, and after 6 months of AHCC^® administration, 17/31 (55%) had PSADT of 120 months or more. To the lower end, 12/31 (39%) of patients showed a PSADT less than 24 months, and following 6 months of AHCC^®, this fell to 9/31 (29%).

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes compared with the control group:

The hemoglobin (Hb) level after chemotherapy in AHCC^® group was significantly higher
The taste alteration after chemotherapy in AHCC^® group was significantly lower

AHCC supplementation resulted in the following difference in survival rate:

Improved cumulative 5-year survival rates for patients with gastric cancer (stage IA to stage IIIA) compared with other Japanese institutions
Improved cumulative 5-year survival rates for patients with colon cancer (stage II to stage IIIA) compared with other Japanese institutions

Supplementation with AHCC^® had the following results:

A significant decline in TAA occurred in 8 out of the 11 patients with different types of malignancies
PSA levels in prostate cancer patients and CA 125 levels in ovarian cancer patients decreased as early as 1 to 2 months and reached normal levels within 1 to 4 months
9 out of 11 patients demonstrated marked increase in NK activity as early as 2 weeks after treatment
The percentages of patients with complete remission were as follows: (i) prostatic (66%); (ii) ovarian (66%). (iii) multiple myeloma (50%); (iv) breast, 33% complete remission and 2 partial
In vitro studies showed that AHCC^® possesses suppressive effects on tumor cell growth

Compared against the survival rates in American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) reference data, this retrospective study reported the following observations:

1-year, 2 year and 3-year survival rates for stage IV lung cancer increased to 77.1%, 54.3% and 31.4%, respectively
Improvement of 1-year to 3-year survival rates and prolongation of median survival time (MST) for lung cancer stage IV
QOL scores of 35 cases were rated A to C by 77.2% of patients, which contributed to reducing final hospitalization time
Survival terms for breast cancer patients for 3 years, 4 years and 5 years were 65.6%, 43.8% and 28.1%, respectively
Mean survival terms for breast cancer patients were 5 years, 2 months after recurrence and 7 years, 11 months after initial diagnosis
Extension of survival terms was confirmed
QOL scores on living cases reported a score of A or B (100%), and scores for those who did not survive were A-B (50%) and C (50%)

Health and functional foods are used by progressive cancer patients who hope increased survival time regardless of ambiguous information that includes phrases used to describe these foods, such as “might be effective against cancer.” However, we fear that non evidence-based foods might shorten the lifetime of patients, whose life has already been shortened by cancer. Although our data is retrospective, AHCC^® does not increase the risk of shortening the lifetime of cancer patients, at least in the case of hepatocellular carcinoma. Clinical doctors should neither deny alternative medicine without studying, nor accept alternative medicine easily without critical investigation. Based on scientific, rational data, alternative medicine should be applied.

Group A was given 1-3g/day of modified arabinoxylane with meals. Group B was given 6000 mg/day of coriolus mushroom. Group C was given 4g/day of antigen-infused dialyzable bovine colostrum/whey extract and Group D was given 3-6g/day of active hexose correlated compound (AHCC^®). NK cell activities were assessed before treatment and after an average of 16 weeks of therapy. AHCC^® was the only supplement that consistently and statistically increased NK cell activity. The average increase was 249%.

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following observations:

Results from this phase II study demonstrated that AHCC 3 g once daily was effective to support the host immune system to eliminate persistent HPV infections and was well tolerated with no significant adverse side effects reported. The duration of AHCC supplementation required beyond the first negative result needs more evaluation to optimize success for durable outcomes. The suppression of the IFN-β level to less than 20 pg/ml correlated with clearance of HPV infections and merits further evaluation as a clinical tool for monitoring patients with HPV infections.

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following observations:

In a study of the beneficial effects of AHCC^® supplementation on the alleviation of adverse events in female breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, the results found that those receiving AHCC^® experienced fewer side-effects, most notably related to neutrophils. Neutrophils make up 50%-75% of white blood cells and are the first immune cells to respond to and arrive at the site of infection. Chemotherapy frequently causes a drastic drop neutrophils (a condition called neutropenia), putting the patient at a greater risk of infection. Patients also to wait for their neutrophil levels to recover before proceeding to their next cycle of chemotherapy which prolongs the length of treatment. So the ability to maintain healthy neutrophil levels not only reduces the risk of infections but also enables women to get through their treatment faster. This is why this latest study showing that AHCC^®, a natural compound with an excellent safety profile, can help maintain healthy neutrophil levels is very significant. The researchers at the University of Tokyo retrospectively analyzed 41 consecutive adult patients who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy to see how many of them had to undergo injections of “G-CSF” which are used to stimulate bone marrow production but also entail a number of potential side-effects affecting an estimated 30% of users. They found that those taking AHCC^® had significantly lower use of G-CSF drugs than those without the supplement, indicating that AHCC^® helped the patients maintain normal neutrophil levels without having to use these side-effect inducing drugs.

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes compared with the status before intake:

Significant improvement in NK cell activity
Significant improvement in IFN-γ and IL-2 production
Significant improvement in PS evaluation

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes compared with baseline:

The ratio of NK cells to total lymphocytes increased from 21.67% before taking AHCC^® to 26.21% and 26.0% 3 to 6 months after taking AHCC^®, respectively
There was no change in white blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit and thrombocyte numbers after taking AHCC^®, even though patients were undergoing radiotherapy or chemotherapy
No adverse effects were observed

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes:

Significant enhancement of NK activity against K562 as early as 2 weeks, two- to threefold increase compared with base line
Activity was further increased at subsequent time periods up to 6 months post-treatment with AHCC^®
NK activation was also detected against Raji cells, but at later stages 1-2 months with two- to ten fold increase compared with base line

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes:

Improved hematologic toxicity (neutropenia) and hepatotoxicity
A decreased tendency of QLQ-C30 fatigue scale
A decrease in levels of HHV-6 in saliva by AHCC^® Administration

The DNA levels of herpes virus type 6, often found in people with compromised immune systems and thought to be related to chronic fatigue syndrome, were significantly increased after chemotherapy. AHCC^® significantly decreased the levels of HHV-6 in saliva during chemotheraphy, improved AOL scores in the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and reduced blood and liver toxicity.

It was found that compared with the control group, the AHCC group had significantly fewer neutrophil-related events (odds ratio: 0.30; p = 0.016), significantly lower use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and a higher (although not significant) rate of adverse events associated with c-glutamyl transpeptidase, a liver enzyme.

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes:

1 g AHCC^® significantly decreased AST, ALT and γ-GT values
3 g AHCC^® significantly decreased AST, ALT and γ-GT values except the 4-week γ-GT
AHCC^® supplementation had a more dramatic effect on immune cell phenotypes after vaccination of subjects over 60 years old

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following changes:

Although no significant reduction of HCV RNA levels was noticed in AHCC^® group patients compared with those of placebo group, subgroup analysis of genotype-3 had a significant HCV RNA decline
Although the reduction of ALT levels within AHCC^® group was not significant, a significant difference was found between AHCC^® and placebo groups
AHCC group ALT levels were stable, while ALT levels increased in placebo group. Such difference was initially noted within the first 6 weeks of the study.

After 12 weeks of supplementation, the percentage change in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels was significantly different between the placebo and both AHCC groups (1 g of AHCC^® and 3 g of AHCC^®). Serum levels of tumor necrosis (p < 0.05) and interleukin-1β ( p < 0.01) were significantly lower, while those of adiponectin were higher in both AHCC^® groups than in the placebo group (p < 0.01). AHCC^® supplementation for 12 weeks may improve the levels of liver enzymes and circulating pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines in patients with alcohol-induced mildly elevated liver enzyme levels. The liver enzyme levels, lipid profiles, insulin resistance, and scores on fatigue and stress-related questionnaires did not show significant differences between the groups (p < 0.05); however, cytokine levels did show significant differences (TNF-α, IL-1β, and adiponectin, p < 0.05). Comparing the percentage changes at 12 weeks as analyzed by a paired t-test, a decrease in liver enzymes in both AHCC groups and a change in IL-1β and adiponectin in the 1-g AHCC^® group were found to be statistically significant. When analyzed with ANOVA, the percentage changes of serum levels of inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α (p < 0.05) and IL-1β (p < 0.01), were lower in the AHCC^® supplementation groups than in the placebo group. Serum levels of adiponectin were higher in both AHCC^® groups than in the placebo group (p < 0.05).

AHCC^® supplementation resulted in the following significant changes compared with base line:

The frequency of CD4+ and CD8 + T cells producing IFN-γ alone, TNF-α alone or both increased during AHCC intake
The frequency of such cells remained high even 30 days after discontinuing AHCC^®

Giving nutritional supplements before flu shots boosts immunity and makes the vaccine more effective. The mushroom extract Active hexose correlated compound (AHCC) improved survival in studies of mice given a flu virus. Also when AHCC^® was given to mice before getting a flu vaccine they had improved survival from the bird flu virus compared to mice that only had the vaccine. It is thought that AHCC^® will improve protection against getting the flu when given around the same time as receiving a flu shot. A well designed study was performed with 30 healthy adults to see if AHCC^® supplementation could improve protection against the flu if also flu shots were given. This was during the 2009-2010 flu season. Blood was drawn from patients before vaccination and then 1 week after. Immediately after the flu shot, the AHCC group took 3 grams per day of AHCC^®. The analysis of white blood cells in these subjects after vaccination showed that AHCC^® supplementation increased the natural killer cells and T cell types of white blood cells when compared to the group who didn’t receive AHCC^®. Antibody levels against the influenza B virus were also higher in the AHCC^® group 3 weeks after being given the shot. The AHCC^® supplementation group had better immunity with greater levels of white blood cells and antibodies against the flu virus compared to the control group.

Volunteers supplemented with AHCC^® had the following significant changes:

Greater number of total DCs than at base line and compared with control
The number of DC1 cells was greater after AHCC^® intake than at base line and the AHCC group had a tendency to have higher DC1s than control
DC2s were significantly increased after 4 weeks compared with control
The allo-stimulatory activity of DC1s was also increased after intake compared with control as measured by the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR)

Five subjects achieved a negative HPV test result — three with confirmed eradication after stopping AHCC^® — with the remaining two responders continuing on the study.

Laboratory results and adverse events were reported as follows:

Two subjects (7%) dropped out because of nausea and intolerance of the liquid
Nausea, diarrhea, bloating, headache, fatigue and foot cramps occurred in a total of 6 subjects (20%) but were mild and transient
There were no laboratory abnormalities

Children with pharmacoresistant epilepsy had decreased mature T lymphocytes (CD3+) and T cells and an imbalance in the subset. The amount of CD3+ T lymphocytes in the epilepsy group was 42.42%±14.65%, which is 82.8% of average. The amount of CD4+ T lymphocytes was 71.6%, and cytotoxic CD8+ was 112.7%. The CD4+/CD8+ lymphocytes subset distribution and regulatory balance had a ratio of 1.28±0.55, which was below average or only 58.6% of the average value. After AHCC^® intake, patients had positive changes of peripheral T cell pool (CD3+) and T-helpers (CD4+). They also showed an improvement and increase in the ratio of T suppressors-killers (CD8+) to lymphocytes to 1.4. Due to increases in the CD4+ lymphocytes subset, the immunoregulatory balance of the CD4+ to CD8+ ratio improved. There was a 35% decrease of frequency and intensity of epileptic seizures. The patients’ bodily health status and physiological functions also improved.

Natural killer cell activity significantly increased in both groups during the study period. The natural killer cell number, however, was not altered in the active hexose correlated compound group, while the placebo group showed remarkable decline. In addition, the score of immunological vigor, an index of total immune competence, was maintained in the AHCC^® group, although that of the placebo group decreased during the test period.

Learn how Stress impacts your Immune System

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