Less education equals more flu risk?

Writer Rick Nauert in PsychCentral's article "Less Education = More Risk for Flu" asks that question.

Nauert, senior news editor for PsychCentral.com, discusses a study that showed the flu vaccine may not be as effective against the flu in less educated people because their immune system is compromised by ongoing stress.

From the site:

The University of Michigan study looked at cytomegalovirus, a common virus that infects most people at some time during their lives but rarely causes obvious illness.

It is a type of herpes virus related to viruses that cause chickenpox, infectious mononucleosis, fever blisters (herpes I) and genital herpes (herpes II). Like other herpes viruses, CMV infection can become dormant for a while and may reactivate at a later time.

Previous studies have shown that elderly people with less education are less successful at fighting off CMV, but this is the first known study to make that connection in younger adults as well, said study co-author Jennifer Dowd, who began the work while in the Health and Society Scholars program at the U-M School of Public Health.

High levels of CMV antibodies make it tougher for the elderly to fight new infections like H1N1, and hampers the body’s immune response to the flu vaccine.

The U-M findings suggest that lower socioeconomic status may make it tougher even for adults of all ages to fight new infections and may make the flu vaccine less effective.

“We’re showing that the ability to keep CMV under control varies by income and education even at much younger ages, and this could have implications for the ability to fight new infections like H1N1 for all ages, not just the elderly,” said Dowd, now an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Hunter College.

With the economic recession, I have to wonder if everyone's under ongoing stress. I've got two bachelor's degrees but still feel stress every day I walk into a newsroom. 

Maybe that has something to do with why H1N1 is spreading so fast and causing so many problems. People definitely are under ongoing stress.

Think that means - along with hand washing - vacations should be part of the defense.