Stress Can INCREASE a Person's Allergies!

Researchers at Ohio State University recently published an article in the June 2009 journal Psychoneuroendocrinology titled "How stress and anxiety can alter immediate and late phase skin test responses in allergic rhinitis."

What they found was that allergic responses to a skin prick increased after a stressful event compared to a non-stressful event. Anxiety also substantially enhanced the effects of stress far into the future as even skin tests performed the day after the stressor reflected the continuing impact of the stressor among the more anxious participants.

Read the NYT article on this here.

Yet another thing to think about in allergic patients...

Read more about the study here.

NYT: Redheads Have Lower Pain Thresholds

The New York Times on Aug 6, 2009 published a story "The Pain of Being a Redhead" that describes research why redheads experience more pain than other individuals.

Apparently, red hair color is caused by variants of the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene. People with naturally red hair are resistant to subcutaneous local anesthetics and, therefore, may experience increased anxiety and pain regarding dental care as well as other surgical procedures. Having this gene variant significantly affected a patient's level of anxiety and pain experience when compared to others, even when controlled for general trait anxiety and sex.

It may behoove surgeons to be aware and appropriately adjust medications to take the findings of this research into consideration when dealing with their redhead patients.

Though research has not born out that redheads "bleed" more, it does bring up the thought that if a redhead has more pain and increased anxiety from a surgical procedure, it may raise their blood pressure which IS associated with greater bleeding risk.

Read more about this story here. Read the research backing this story up here.