Healing photos boost immunity

Scientists: the human immune system reacts even to photos of sick peopleRIA News
The immune system reacts more acutely to microbes, even if a person simply sees photos of other people with symptoms of infectious diseases, Canadian researchers report in an article published in the electronic version of the journal Psychological Science (Mark Schaller et al., Mere Visual Perception of Other People's Disease Symptoms Facilitates a More Aggressive Immune Response – VM.)

Mark Schaller and his colleagues from the University of British Columbia conducted an experiment and found out that in people who looked at a selection of images of symptoms of various diseases, white blood cells, when bacteria are detected in the blood, secrete more signaling molecules (interleukin 6, IL-6), triggering an immune response to a threat. (A short retelling of the article and an interview with Schaller, The Psychological Immune System, are published on Psychology Today – VM.)

The participants of the experiment watched ten-minute slide shows from photographs and assessed their attitude to these slide shows. In addition, the researchers took blood tests from them before and after viewing photos of different subjects.

It turned out that although images of people with guns "aiming" at viewers were rated as frightening on average, the reaction of white blood cells to bacteria increased by only 6% compared to the baseline level. At the same time, photos of sneezing people, people with skin lesions, rashes and other signs of infectious diseases increased the amount of IL-6 produced by cells by 23%.

Researchers suggest that the perception of the threat of infection may increase the production of hormones that transmit signals to the immune system. In their opinion, this reaction could have arisen in the course of evolution as one of the additional mechanisms of protection against diseases.

Previously, scientists have already written about the existence of the so-called "behavioral immune system": seeing unhealthy skin color or other signs of possible diseases in other people, a person restricts his contacts with them and changes behavior to avoid infection. However, there was no evidence that the real immune system could respond to visual signals.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru06.04.2010