This strain does not come from one event. It builds slowly from sleep loss, diet, work pressure, sedentary habits, and even environmental exposure. Over time, these pressures affect the heart, metabolism, immune system, and brain.
Doctors increasingly believe that tracking this biological stress may help predict disease risk years earlier than traditional diagnosis.
Dr Suchismitha Rajamanya, Lead Consultant & HOD – Internal Medicine, Aster Whitefield Hospital, explains the idea clearly.
“Medicine is gradually moving from reacting to disease to predicting it, and the concept of a person’s ‘biological stress score’ is an important part of that shift. While the stress we experience emotionally is one thing, biological stress, on the other hand, is the strain that is put on the body’s systems over time. Allostatic load, as it is called, is a measurable effect that illustrates how stress, lack of sleep, poor eating habits, and an imbalanced metabolism, among other factors, impact the human body. When high levels of stress are maintained for a long duration of time, it affects hormones, immunity, blood pressure, and glucose levels without a person’s knowledge.”
