Compensatory Reserves of the Human Body and Population Health under Conditions of Exposure to Chronic Anthropogenic Factors and Prolonged Psychoemotional Stress

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Long-term exposure to adverse factors of various origin and intensity is expected to cause a significant decrease in the compensatory reserves and adaptive capacity of the human body. These changes deteriorate the population health status in general. A quantitative method of evaluation of the decrease in the compensatory reserves and adaptive capacity, as well as the resistance to chronic exposure to extreme factors of various origin and intensity, was developed. This method is based on the concept of stress and programmable nonspecific physiological reactions of the human body put forward by H. Selye. Model analytical curves of the time-related decrease in the volume of compensatory reserves and the increase in the probability of development of adaptive disorders and failure of the adaptation process were calculated for the cases of long-term exposure to various stressors (the factors were applied individually or in combination). This method allowed the levels of population health risk induced by various factors to be compared to each other. This is of particular importance under conditions of the existing trend toward an increase in the intensity of anthropogenic stress factors against the background of long-term psychoemotional stress. Statistical data on changes in the rates of morbidity and mortality and the life expectancy of Russian people for the period 1960–2000 were analyzed. The levels of risk of the negative impact on population health induced by various stress factors (radiation, chemical environmental pollution, and long-term psychoemotional stress) were compared to each other.