Consequences of stress: a multiplicative function of health status.

We hypothesized that an individual's state of health affects its response to stress. To test this, we used the natural history of inherited heart disease in hamsters as a sliding scale of organ vulnerability on which we superimposed a constant set of stressors. When the animal was stressed at an early point in its disease, heart failure did not develop. Later, after cardiac compensatory changes had developed, stress precipitated overt heart failure. Finally, stress administered when the animal was in overt heart failure further amplified the medical consequences of stress, and some animals succumbed.