{"id":10364,"date":"2025-12-11T19:44:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2025-12-11T19:45:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:45:56","slug":"anxiety-and-insomnia-impair-the-immune-system-research-confirms-reduction-of-nk-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/anxiety-and-insomnia-impair-the-immune-system-research-confirms-reduction-of-nk-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"Anxiety and insomnia impair the immune system: Research confirms reduction of NK cells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"0\"><b>The number and function of the immune system&#8217;s primary defenders, Natural Killer (NK) cells, may be significantly reduced due to symptoms of anxiety disorder and insomnia.<\/b><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\">NK cells are a special type of white blood cell (lymphocytes) that form the first line of defense for the immune system. Their main mission is to provide a rapid and direct response to cells infected by viruses and to cancerous formations. They destroy these cells before the pathogen has a chance to spread. A deficit of these cells may lead to immune system dysfunction and a predisposition to diseases.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\"><b>This alarming finding was confirmed by a new study conducted in Saudi Arabia, the results of which were published in the journal <i>Frontiers in Immunology<\/i>.<\/b> The research, involving 60 young female students aged 17 to 23, aimed to establish a connection between anxiety, insomnia, and the count of NK cells.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\">The study results showed a clear link:<\/p>\n<ul data-path-to-node=\"5\">\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5,0,0\">Students with <b>insomnia symptoms<\/b> had a reduced total number and percentage of NK cells (both overall and their subpopulations).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5,1,0\">Students with <b>anxiety symptoms<\/b> showed a reduction in the percentage and count of circulating NK cells (and their subpopulations) compared to students without symptoms.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"6\">The researchers note that the <b>severity of the symptoms played a significant role<\/b>: students with moderate and severe anxiety symptoms had a significantly lower percentage of circulating NK cells.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7\">As the study showed, approximately <b>53% of the participants reported insomnia<\/b>, and <b>75% reported symptoms of anxiety<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"8\">The reduction of NK cells, especially the circulating subpopulations, may lead to a weakened immune system, which could result in various diseases, including cancer and mental health issues, such as depression.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"8\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/journals\/immunology\/articles\/10.3389\/fimmu.2025.1698155\/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frontiers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The number and function of the immune system&#8217;s primary defenders, Natural Killer (NK) cells, may be significantly reduced due to symptoms of anxiety disorder and insomnia. NK cells are a special type of white blood cell (lymphocytes) that form the first line of defense for the immune system. Their main mission is to provide a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1631,1594,1645,1587,1657],"tags":[2927,3351,2923],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-neurology","category-news","category-psychiatry","category-research","category-science","tag-anxiety","tag-insomnia-impair-the-immune-system","tag-shphothva"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10366,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions\/10366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}