Human aggression and enumerative measures of immunity.
OBJECTIVE
A pattern of clinical, behavioral, and experimental findings suggests that individual differences in aggressive behavior may be related to immunologic processes. We evaluated two conflicting models of the relationship: 1) A positive association stems from an adaptive mechanism protecting aggressive individuals from increased exposure to immune stimuli and 2) a negative association is due to potential immunosuppressive effects of high testosterone levels.


METHODS
We investigated the models using enumerative measures of cellular and humoral immunity in a sample of 4415 men aged 30 to 48 years who were interviewed and underwent a medical examination.


RESULTS
Analysis revealed positive (and curvilinear) associations between aggressive behavior and enumerative measures of helper/inducer and suppressor/cytolytic T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes. The aggression-immunity relationship was independent of testosterone level, age, current health status, and negative health behaviors and was most pronounced for helper/inducer T cells. There was no evidence of a negative association between testosterone and any immune measure.


CONCLUSIONS
In a large sample of men, individual differences in aggressive behavior were positively associated with enumerative measures of cellular immunity.
Granger
D A
DA
Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802, USA. dag11@psu.edu
Booth
A
A
Johnson
D R
DR
D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology*; D000917:Antibody Formation / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D016131:Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013739:Testosterone / Q000097:blood; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology; D014744:Vietnam
D013739:Testosterone