In a study involving 40 healthy male participants between 20 and 40 years of age, participants who grew up without pets in cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants exhibited increased systemic immune activation and inflammation following psychosocial stress exposure compared with participants who grew up on a farm with animals, suggesting that urban upbringing could lead to exaggerated inflammatory responses to stress and increase vulnerability to stress-associated physical and mental disorders.
###
Article #17-19866: "Less immune activation following social stress in rural vs. urban participants raised with regular or no animal contact, respectively, respectively," by Till S. Böbel et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Stefan O. Reber, University Hospital Ulm, GERMANY; tel: +49-73150061943; e-mail: Stefan.Reber@uniklinik-ulm.de
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences