Most of us have to go to work even when we are sick. When I’m sick, my co-workers, or when a sick colleague comes to work, how do we react?
New research suggests that when you’re surrounded by colleagues who sniff and sneeze over and over, your body is already preparing to fight. It means that the immune system is already activated just by seeing a sick colleague.
“Our physiology, especially the immune system that protects us from invaders, is tightly controlled,” said Patricia C. Lopez, assistant professor of life sciences at Chapman University’s Schmidt School of Science and Technology. It changes dramatically to recover.”
The study, led by Professor Lopez, shows that when we are at high risk for disease, our physiology changes even before we get sick. “Our brains can get information from sick people, and it can lead to changes in our physiology,” said Lopez. For example, witnessing a sick person can already activate the immune system.
According to Professor Lopez, broadly speaking, this means that parasites that affect the body have a greater impact on our lives than previously thought. This is because it is already affecting our physiology before it even enters the body.
It’s not well known how the ability to change your physiology before you become ill helps your body fight or recover from illness, but it’s thought to have profound implications for how disease spreads and how sick people and animals are cared for and studied. That’s the researchers’ explanation.
The results of this study were published in the British Ecological Society journal ‘Functional Ecology’ under the title ‘Anticipating infection: How parasitism risk changes animal physiology’.
Reporter Jeong Hee-eun eun@kormedi.com
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