You have to look at it as a package. But with strong enough stresses, even the most tuned-down system will respond. Scientists today also talk about achieving a balance. This time around, the balance is understood in molecular terms, involving circulating molecules called interleukins, neurotransmitters, and hormones that send signals to each other and make people sick or well. Strong, painful emotions trigger these chemical messengers in ways that tip the balance toward disease.
Good health represents a different molecular balance.
Emotions and Disease is currently on display at the National Library of Medicine on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The show will run through 1997 April. The exhibit was made possible by support from the Charles A. Dana Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and the National Institute of Mental Health. All of the images in this story are from the exhibit. The exhibit was developed by Sternberg, a neuroendocrinimmunologist and Dr. Elizabeth Fee, a historian of medicine.