The effect of a transient immune activation on subjective health perception in two placebo controlled randomised experiments

Background Patient-reported outcomes predict mortality and play increasingly important roles in care, but factors that modify central measures such as health ratings have been little investigated. Building on designated immune-to-brain pathways, we aimed to determine how a short-term induced inflammation response impacts self-reported health status. Methods Lipopolysaccharide injections were used to provoke acute systemic inflammatory responses in healthy men and women and were compared to placebo in two double-blind randomized experiments. In Experiment 1, 8 individuals (mean 24 years; SD=3.7) received lipopolysaccharide 0.8 ng/kg once and placebo once in a cross-over design, and in Experiment 2, 52 individuals received either lipopolysaccharide 0.6 ng/kg or placebo once in a non-cross-over design (28.6 years; SD=7.1). Main outcomes were perceived health (general and current), sickness behaviour (like fatigue, pain and negative affect), and plasma interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8 and TNF-α, b...

研究背景：患者报告结局（Patient-reported Outcomes, PROs）可有效预测死亡率，且在临床诊疗中的作用愈发重要，但目前针对健康自评等核心指标的调节因素相关研究仍较为匮乏。本研究基于已探明的免疫-脑通路，旨在明确短期诱导性炎症应答对个体自我报告健康状况的影响。
研究方法：本研究开展两项双盲随机对照试验，通过脂多糖（Lipopolysaccharide, LPS）注射诱发健康男女受试者的急性全身炎症应答，并以安慰剂作为对照。试验1采用交叉设计，纳入8名受试者（平均年龄24岁，标准差=3.7），分别单次注射0.8 ng/kg剂量的脂多糖与安慰剂；试验2采用非交叉设计，纳入52名受试者（平均年龄28.6岁，标准差=7.1），均单次接受0.6 ng/kg剂量的脂多糖或安慰剂注射。本研究的主要结局指标包括感知健康（总体与当前健康状况）、病感行为（如疲劳、疼痛与负性情感），以及血浆白细胞介素（IL）-6、IL-8与肿瘤坏死因子α（TNF-α），b...