Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by EliRivers 2494 days ago
It was absolutely caused by unconscious emotions (like stress).

I cannot imagine a mechanism whereby stress causes a human body to create a bacterium, effectively from out of nowhere. To synthesise it. Do you have any evidence or even a posited mechanism for this amazing claim? Or is your claim that the illness isn't caused by this bacterium?

3 comments

No-one is claiming that stress synthesizes bacteria, that is a laughable strawman.

We are surrounded by bacteria at all times. If stress were to weaken your immune system, then you might be more easily infected by them. This seems completely plausible to me (likely, even). It is not a great leap to describe this link as stress "causing" the infection, even if it might be better to describe it more precisely. Perhaps "stress meant he couldn't fight off the infection as he normally would have"?

Not saying I completely buy into it as an explanation for this specific case - but stress can compromise the immune system making it easier for infections to occur.
This bacteria is part of our normal microbiota. The immune system suppress them to not wreak havoc.