
This is not all in your head: if you are experiencing a lot of stress, it can really affect your skin in a serious way.
Researchers at the University of California have found that psychological stress makes the skin more vulnerable to bacterial infections.
Mice placed in a stressful environment were compared to mice under normal conditions; the first group was more prone to pyogenic streptococcus.
After further analysis, they discovered that this was due to a drop in antimicrobial peptides and that this decrease was directly related to stress.
When stress cannot be reduced, it can be treated by limiting the production of glucocorticoids, a kind of steroid hormone that plays an important role in the reduction of these peptides defensive.