Abstract
Women are more likely to get autoimmune diseases than men. The immune system can be activated by acute stress via stimulation by the sympathetic nervous system. Many studies have documented gender differences in the SNS inflammatory stress responses, and finding a pattern of increased SNS activity in women would help to explain the differences in disease rates. In this study, we exposed healthy young and old men and women adults to a psychosocial stressor (TSST) on two consecutive days and measured a marker of the SNS, salivary alpha amylase, in order to study stress reactivity and habituation. At the same time, we also used pre-TSST stress appraisals to measure if different appraisals of the stressor would have impact on the SNS reactivity. We found that the psychosocial stressor induced an increase in amylase release on both study days, but this increase was attenuated in men only, indicating the presence of habituation in men but not women. While there were no differences in pre-TSST stress appraisals between men and women, stress appraisals such as threat and challenge were predictive of amylase increases on both study days in women only. Taken together, we found patterns of stress reactivity in women that could predispose them to autoimmune disease; furthermore, stress appraisals predict heightened reactivity in women only, suggesting a psychological link between stress and health that differs between the sexes.