Gulf War Scientific Literature Linking Stress to Health Problems

This chapter evaluates available data bearing directly on the possible role of exposure to potentially stressful conditions as an etiologic factor in the health problems of veterans of the Persian Gulf War. After describing our method for identifying relevant studies and briefly characterizing different approaches used by these studies to measure stress exposure and health outcomes, this chapter will evaluate the extent to which study findings support a link between stress exposure and subsequent health problems. Following the organizational structure of Chapter Four, discussion of the literature will first focus on the studies linking stress to mental health outcomes. No studies were found linking stress to physical disease per se, although a few studies examined the relationship between stress and bodily symptoms that might be due to either physical or mental conditions. As in Chapter Four, we provide a brief review of evidence pertaining to whether certain individuals or groups were at greater risk for developing stress-related health problems. However, we found no Gulf War– specific studies that expressly addressed whether stress exposure fostered the perception of illness or illness behavior. So, unlike Chapter Four, this chapter does not address that topic.