The research to develop stress resilience application technology could lead to the growth of a new bio field, a state agency says.

“As there have been few cases of application study for stress resilience technology, now is the time to invest in these research,” said Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology(KEIT) _{한국산업기술평가관리원} in a report titled “New industrial technology using stress resilience and natural substances.”

Resilience is recovering or restoring power -- a positive process or ability to deal with adversity and grow on one’s own by becoming stronger through the hardship and getting more experiences and resources from it.

If people can get resilience from stress by grafting this concept to healthcare, they can apply it to disease prevention by keeping minor disorders, a previous stage of disease, from developing into the next stage, the report said.

"As there are many causes of diseases stemming from stress and the mechanisms are unclear, they appear in different forms of bodily disorders,” it said. “A uniform treatment through chemotherapy has revealed many limitations.”

The report said researchers could make the most of the natural substances that have fewer side effects than chemicals and can be more easily connected to dietary culture.

The report said chronic stress leads to excessive stimulus in hypothalamus-pituitary gland-adrenal cortex and resulting imbalance in biological metabolism, which can cause bodily disorders or diseases.

It cited indigestion, headache, insomnia, dry eye, lethargy and sudden change in weight as major disorders caused by stress.

"Recently, the need to manage internal factors that can enhance stress resilience has been emphasized as a means of treating people with stress-related diseases and minimizing stressed responses in the course of disease treatments,” it said. “Medical scientists have come to pay attention to the concept of resilience because patients showed different reactions to similar stress in vulnerability and resistance."

According to the report, the necessity to conduct in-depth research into resilience in bio area was raised in the journal Nature in 2012.

"Traditional drug treatment has focused on removing the causes of diseases, but it has limitations in stress conditions for which metabolism balance is necessary,” it said. “On the other hand, scientific evidence has been presented continuously about the need to prevent diseases, improve immune function, and make metabolic balance through improving stress resilience.”

Most anti-stress substances are extracts from natural resources. The results of researches into the anti-stress effects of natural substances can be useful, the report added.

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