Contribution of stress and its mediators to ontopathogeny of infections: focus on interactions of cytokines and glucocorticoids.

Presented work is a bibliographic review about participation of glucocorticoids, cytokines and other bioregulators of stress in ontogeny of immune system and in pathogeny of infections. Besides, age-related dynamics and gender differences of morbidity and mortality caused by three infectious diseases (AIDS, pulmonary tuberculosis and sepsis) were evaluated in Brazilian states of Southern region during three chronologic periods. The results obtained indicate the necessity of higher attention to subclinical role of infectious agents in the etiopathogeny of other chronic degenerative, age-related disorders.