Intense Grief Can Severely Affect Health, Studies Finds
Research indicates that some women who experience the deaths of their husbands undergo such severe immune system changes that they become more susceptible to disease and possibly even death.
The study, conducted by researchers at UCLA and the University of California, San Diego, focused on a dramatic decline in the production of crucial immune system cells in grief-stricken women.
Reporting in the American Journal of Psychiatry, scientists said the study may eventually lead to further investigations that will explain why some people become ill and, in some cases, die after the death of a spouse.
“The reason we looked at bereavement is because it is believed to be one of the most adverse life events, and previous epidemiological studies have shown that widows or widowers are most likely to die within the first six months after the death of a spouse,” said UC San Diego psychiatrist Michael Irwin, the project’s chief investigator
“This study was very focused,” Irwin said. “We wanted to examine if the changes we were seeing in immune function were relevant to health outcome.”
Seeking Common Thread
Irwin and his team wanted to test for a common thread linking grief, illness and death because “the immune system changes we measured during bereavement indicate that grief is not just a psychological phenomenon,” he said.
The researchers studied a group of 37 women made up of those who were recently widowed and those whose husbands were dying of lung cancer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles. The women were evaluated for a number of symptoms that ranged from mood swings and thoughts of suicide to insomnia and weight loss.
Results of the evaluations and tests for immune system function were then compared to similar tests of women whose husbands were healthy.
“Two other studies before this one looked at men (whose spouses had died) and demonstrated that other immune system parameters were involved,” said Irwin of a possible relationship between depression and illness in men.
He said his study and the investigations of grieving men form the groundwork for his next project which will further test the hypothesis that grief and immune function are so inextricably linked that severe illness and even death may result in someone mourning the death of another.
“In this study we looked at immune system parameters that we think are more relevant to disease susceptibility,” said Irwin in comparing his study to the earlier investigations of bereaved men.
Irwin focused on the activity of natural killer cells and T-cells, immune system components that circulate in the bloodstream. They were significantly decreased in bereaved women tested during the study.
“The killer cells have been demonstrated in animal studies to protect against viral infections and tumors,” he said, “and the T-cell population is important in regulating immune response.”
