Clinical Psychoneuroimmunology
PNIc will help you regain control of your health.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a scientific discipline that studies the connections and interactions between the systems that regulate human health and behaviour: the neuroendocrine system, the immune system and the metabolic system. It is a transversal way of understanding health that, thanks to a thorough study of physiology and biochemistry, connects the symptoms that the patient presentsto understand the whole “film” and decipher the mechanisms of action that have led to illness, since several people may have the same pathology by different routes (and, hence, their treatment should not be the
same).
PNI originated in the United States when, in 1974, Bob Ader of the University of Rochester visited the office of his colleague Nicholas Cohen to convince him to support his hypotheses about the connections between the nervous system and the immune system. Cohen accepted the proposal, and in 1975 they published the first study that would lay the foundations of PNI (Ader and Cohen, 1975). From this moment on, PNI experienced a rapid and solid expansion, although so much research was not transferred to the clinic.
Years later, in Europe, Dr Leo Pruimboom (initially with Bran Van Dam) began to apply all this scientific knowledge in the clinic, giving rise to clinical psychoneuroimmunology (PNIc). All of us at Emovere have had Leo Pruimboom as a teacher, an inexhaustible source of knowledge with an impressive didactic capacity – a great fortune and an immense pleasure.
“In the last decades, our lifestyle has changed very drastically, and this conflicts with our genetics.”
We have lost touch with evolutionary challenges that have been part of everyday human life for much of our existence, and modern lifestyle sensitises us to pathology. And that is why at PNIc, after understanding what is happening to our patients, we will propose concrete and proven lifestyle strategies to help them regain their resilience and health.
PNI offers the science of change; change requires a deep understanding of the problem. And that is why, in a PNI consultation, we spend all the time necessary to help the person understand the mechanisms of action that have led to the problem they are consulting us about. If the person understands, they are empowered and ready to change. Science says that our lifestyle is mainly responsible for the onset of chronic diseases. If this is so, it seems the most logical thing to tackle any chronic pathology; we would indeed be acting on the causes. By lefestyle we mean diet, physical exercise, stress management, sleep and rest,, as well as intermittent exposure to certain stimuli that are inherent to human existence and which, far from harming us, will make us more resilient.