The influence of stressors on biochemical reactions - a review of present scientific findings with noise

For every faculty of perception there is, according to the degree of irrita tion, a biochemical or psychobiological activation. This is also true for t he perception of sound or noise. Initially, these processes allow for the a djustment of the organism to a changed situation (eustress). Prolonged effe cts of stressors may ultimately lead to regulatory disturbances and induce pathological processes (distress). The pathogenetic concept that psychobiological stresses (e.g. noise) may be connected with the well-known risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, thr ough exitation of the central nervous system, is based on the known stress models. The central connective factors are the activation hormones of the a drenal gland, also referred to as stress hormones. From blood and urine par ameters recorded in epidemiological and experimental studies under the infl uence of acute or chronic noise, a simplified model of the pathogenetic mec hanism has been developed. Fundamental conditions for future assessing the "stress hormones" have been derived, by means of which premorbid conditions can be determined on a population or group basis.