Материалы IХ Международной научно-практической конференции «Артериальная гипертензия и профилактика сердечно-сосудистых заболеваний» to damaged arteries and plaque formation. <...> The hypothesis that stress predicts susceptibility to the common cold received support from observational studies. <...> One problem with such studies is that they do not control for exposure. <...> Stressed people, for instance, might seek more outside contact and thus be exposed to more viruses. <...> Therefore, in a more controlled study, people were exposed to a rhinovirus and then quarantined to control for exposure to other viruses. <...> Those individuals with the most stressful life events and highest levels of perceived stress and negative aff ect had the greatest probability of developing cold symptoms. <...> In a subsequent study of volunteers inoculated with a cold virus, it was found that people enduring chronic, stressful life events (i.e., events lasting a month or longer including unemployment, chronic underemployment, or continued interpersonal diffi culties) had a high likelihood of catching cold, whereas people subjected to stressful events lasting less than a month did not .stress has also been associated with exacerbations of autoimmune disease and other conditions in which excessive infl ammation is a central feature, Infl ammation, Cytokine Production, and Mental Health. <...> Stress is a central concept for understanding both life and evolution. <...> All creatures face threats to homeostasis, which must be met with adaptive responses. <...> Our future as individuals and as a species depends on our ability to adapt to potent stressors. <...> At a societal level, we face a lack of institutional resources (e.g., inadequate health insurance), pestilence (e.g., HIV/AIDS), war, and international terrorism that has reached our shores. <...> At an individual level, we live with the insecurities of our daily existence including job stress, marital stress, and unsafe schools and neighborhoods. <...> These are not an entirely new condition as, in the last century alone, the world suff ered from instances of mass starvation, genocide, revolutions, civil wars, major infectious disease epidemics, two world wars, and a pernicious cold war that threatened the world order. <...> Although we have chosen not to focus on these global threats in this paper, they do <...>