Reduced Glucocorticoid Sensitivity of Monocyte Interleukin-6 Production in Male Industrial Employees who are Vitally Exhausted
Petra H. Wirtz, PhD,
Roland von Känel, MD,
Pia Schnorpfeil, PhD,
Ulrike Ehlert, PhD,
Karl Frey, PhD and
Joachim E. Fischer, MD, MSc
From Department of Behavioral Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (P.H.W., R.v.K., P.S., K.F., J.E.F.), Zurich; Department of Clinical Psychology II, University of Zurich (U. E.), Zurich, Switzerland
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Fig. 2. LPS stimulated release of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and inhibition of IL-6 release by dexamethasone in the three groups (mean ± SEM). While there was no significant difference of IL-6 stimulation by LPS between groups, IL-6 release was less suppressed by dexamethasone in the highly exhausted subjects than in the nonexhausted subjects (p = .010).
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Fig. 3. Glucocorticoid sensitivity of LPS-stimulated release of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the three groups. The IC50 is inversely related to glucocorticoid sensitivity; ie, higher IC50 indicates lower glucocorticoid sensitivity and vice versa. Highly exhausted subjects required relatively more dexamethasone to suppress LPS-stimulated IL-6 release than nonexhausted individuals (p = .003). In other words, monocytes of highly and of moderately exhausted subjects were less sensitive to dexamethasone suppression than monocytes of nonexhausted men.
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Copyright © 2003 by the American Psychosomatic Society
) in the three groups (mean ± SEM). Highly exhausted individuals had higher levels of CRP (p = .008) than nonexhausted subjects, whereas there was no significant difference between groups in terms of TNF-