A new study examined the immune response of children who live in chronic stress: situations where there is conflict in the household, parental depression or anxiety, parental unemployment or poverty, or violence in the home.

In adults, chronic stressors tend to diminish the body’s natural killer (NK) cells, resulting in depressed immune response: meaning that adults under chronic stress tend to get sick more often and stay sick for longer.

This finding was reversed in children.

In states of chronic stress, children actually had higher levels of NK cells circulating in their bodies.

Where the stress did show up, though, was in the number of fevers these children had. Children under chronic stress were more likely to suffer from frequent fevers compared to children who did not live in chronically stressful conditions.

Head researcher, Dr. Mary Caserta, described these findings as counter-intuitive and said there must be other mechanisms at work in children.

She did suggest that these findings may be linked to the fact that children in the 5-10 year old age range are still experiencing development of their immune system, which may account for the greater presence of NK cells than expected in stressful conditions.