Developments in Brief : Grief May Weaken Body’s Immune System

Grief and the depression that accompanies it may weaken the body’s natural defenses against disease, according to a study of the wives and widows of terminally ill cancer patients.

Michael Irwin, a University of California, San Diego, psychiatrist, studied 37 women, 16 whose husbands were dying of inoperable lung cancer, 10 whose husbands had just died of lung cancer and a control group of 11 with healthy husbands.

The women with dead or dying husbands had significantly lower levels of disease-fighting white blood cells than did women whose husbands were healthy, according to the study, which was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Irwin stressed that because the study looked only at blood cell counts, and not specific illness or mortality, he could not claim to have established a correlation between grief and susceptibility.

What is significant, he said, is that “grief is not just a psychological phenomenon, but has physical effects as well.”

In the study, at least three blood samples were taken from each woman over a period of about a month. They were monitored at the same time for signs of depression such as insomnia, weight loss, mood swings or suicidal impulses.

Negative effects showed up in two types of white blood cells that were checked.

Five of the women came back for further tests about six months later, and in every case, white cell levels had returned to normal, Irwin said. Those who had showed symptoms of depression also had recovered.