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slows healing (The Globe and Mail, Nov. 11, 1995) Psychological stress has been found to hinder the healing of wounds. Professor Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues from the Ohio State University of Medicine studied 13 women charged with the stressful job of caring for ailing relatives and a control group of 13 similar age and family income. Each of the 26 women had a small wound inflicted on the forearm. The wounds of the control group healed in about 39 days but those of the caregivers took 49 days to heal. Blood tests showed the caregivers produced significantly less of a powerful hormone-like substance called interleukin-1B, a natural chemical that is part of the body's defence mechanism.
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