Insecurity may 'weaken' immunity

Some people struggle to form close, trusting relationships

Feeling insecure in a relationship may take its toll on the immune system, Italian research suggests.

A study of 61 healthy women, showed that those who struggled to form close, trusting relationships may have weaker immune function.

Blood tests revealed that the women's "natural killer" immune system cells did not function as well.

However, the study in Psychosomatic Medicine could not show if this made the women more susceptible to illness.

A person's ability to establish trusting, close relationships forms in childhood and as a result of a child's relationship with his or her parents, experts believe.

In my practice, I always ask people how they are because if they have a cold or tummy ache, it doesn't happen out of the blue, it's for a reason Leila Collins, counselling psychologist

Romantic relationships in later life can also have an impact on a person's "attachment style".

Study leader Dr Angelo Picardi explained that people who have attachment insecurity struggle to trust and depend on others, feel uncomfortable with emotional intimacy or worry about being abandoned by loved ones.

It has been shown previously that this sort of insecurity may be associated with health problems and how individuals react to or deal with stressful situations.

Immune function

To assess whether there was any impact on immune function, Dr Picardi and colleagues recruited 61 female nurses under the age of 60 who had no chronic illnesses or history of major psychiatric disorders.

Questionnaires were used to find out if the women had any of the signs of attachment insecurity.

And blood tests were done to measure several markers of immune function, including the ability of natural killer cells - immune system cells which kill foreign invaders, such as viruses.

They found that women with greater attachment insecurity had lower activity in their natural killer cells than other study participants.

But there was no association with the number of circulating cells, suggesting there was a change in how the cells performed.

In previous research Picardi, who works at the Italian National Institute of Health has reported associations between insecure attachment and certain skin diseases related to immune dysfunction, such as psoriasis.

"Our findings are preliminary and demand both replication and further investigation," said Dr Picardi.

"At present, we cannot tell whether such a reduction in natural killer cell activity could translate into increased disease susceptibility and poorer health."

But he added: "Our emotional life and the way it unfolds and is regulated is deeply linked to our physiology, including the immune system."

Leila Collins, principle lecturer at Middlesex University and counselling psychologist said the association between stress and immunosuppression was well known, in that when people are stressed they start to get ill more often.

"This is profoundly interesting.

"Psychosomatic illnesses obviously have a psychological basis and attachment insecurity is not the only case.

"In my practice, I always ask people how they are because if they have a cold or tummy ache, it doesn't happen out of the blue, it's for a reason.

"But this kind of research is dogged with difficulty as much of it resides in the unconscious and it doesn't easily lend itself to scientific research."

Professor Phil Evans, professor of psychology at the University of Westminster said that people with attachment insecurity may be more vulnerable to the effects of stress.

"Their world is very different and something which isn't necessarily a stressor to us is stressor to them."