Psychoneuroimmunology
The Brain Connection & Immunity
Learn about how your thoughts and the brain can play a role in your body’s immune-response and susceptibility to infection or ability to recover from illness or infection.
How does Parasite-Trauma, a period of Extreme Stress or a Traumatic Experience affect Immunity?
It is considered that the immune system and the brain evolved together. This field of study is known as ‘Psychoneuroimmunology’ (PNI).
In a stressful situation the body releases a hormone called cortisol to help you deal with the stressor. In prehistoric human the elevation in cortisol enabled humans to ‘fight or flight’ from predators. This mechanism is a vital part of the body’s stress response system, however nowadays you don’t tend to run when sat behind a desk. So what happens to the cortisol?
Continued elevations in cortisol from prolonged stress or a period of extreme trauma may lead to ‘hypercortisolism’ (continually raised cortisol) and cortisol resistance. Which means cell receptors for cortisol become redundant and excess cortisol remains in blood and this can have an impact on immunity. Cortisol plays a role in immune function, therefore prolonged stress or trauma has the ability to impair immunity and reduce the body’s infection fighting capacity.
The stress response has a high requirement for magnesium, a vital mineral known as ‘Mother Nature’s tranquilliser’. When magnesium is redeployed for this process you may experience prolonged feelings of stress following the event or struggle to get back on top of things. Food sources and soil are depleted from sufficient levels of magnesium to support the body to carry out its regular functions let alone through a stressful event. Therapeutic nutritional supplementation with clinical guidance to get through the trauma is therefore optimum for human health and wellbeing.
A traumatic experience, early life adversity, or a period of extreme or prolonged stress, such as during parasite die-off, has the ability to dysregulate cortisol and lead to immunity problems, frequent infections or reduced resilience to fighting infection.
Parasites, trauma & immunity…
Parasite-Trauma
Some of the distressing die-off symptoms from killing parasites in the intestines can cause prolonged stress and feelings of trauma, therefore triggering cortisol resistance, weakening resilience and may reduce immunity against the parasites.
Stress weakens stomach acid and as food is broken down and passed through the digestive tract it should contain a certain amount of acidity to keep ‘pests and parasites’ in check.
When an overgrowth of parasites, such as Enterobius vermicularis (pinworm), take up too much ‘real estate’ space in the gut they may reduce space and population size of other integral organisms such as the beneficial bacteria Bifidobacterium, known as modulator of the human immune system and key player of the gut microbiome and immunity.
The gut microbiome forms 75-80% of human immunity and depends on a diverse selection of species, including sufficient amounts of Bifidobacterium. A balanced and varied colourful diet, rich in a range of specific plant-foods and fibres provides fuels for Bifidobacterium to flourish.
Gut-Brain-Axis & immunity…
Gut-Brain-Axis
The ‘Gut-Brain-Axis’ (GBA) is a bi-directional pathway between the gut and brain, connected via the vagus nerve and your resident microbes are able to send messages between the two.
Traumatic or stressful thoughts can be sent as negative messages down the vagus nerve to the gut and reduce beneficial microbial species, enabling opportunistic microbes and parasites to flourish. This disruption in the ecosystem may reduce immune resilience, increase susceptibility to infection and increase parasite overgrowth.
Prolonged and extreme stress is prominent in people with parasite overgrowth who are experiencing difficult and upsetting die-off symptoms.
In order to find freedom from parasite overgrowth, die-off symptoms and parasite-trauma you need to get to the root cause of the overgrowth and rebuild the gut ecosystem. To do this, a full nutritional analysis of the diet is required, ideally alongside a full blood count to check white (immune) cells, GI Stool Map (not essential but a very useful assessment of gut function and its microbial composition, showing imbalances in immune-boosting species), a complete lifestyle and historical trauma assessment with medical history.
With my interpretation and analysis of your case, I can provide a personalised diet and lifestyle plan with trauma release options to help you find parasite freedom
References
Bonaz, B., Bazin, T., & Pellissier, S. (2018). The Vagus Nerve at the Interface of the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00049
De Filippis, et al. (2015). High-level adherence to a Mediterranean diet beneficially impacts the gut microbiota and associated metabolome. Gut, 65(11), 1812–1821. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2015-309957
Foster, J. A., et al. (2017). Stress & the gut-brain axis: Regulation by the microbiome. Neurobiology of Stress, 7, 124–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2017.03.001
Liang, S., et al. (2018). Gut-Brain Psychology: Rethinking Psychology From the Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2018.00033
Slavich, G. M. (2019). Psychoneuroimmunology of Stress and Mental Health. The Oxford Handbook of Stress and Mental Health, 518–546. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190681777.013.24
Tsigos, C., & Chrousos, G. P. (2002). Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, neuroendocrine factors and stress. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 53(4), 865–871. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(02)00429-4