Is Stress Aging You?

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Is Stress Aging You?

Any idiot can face a crisis, it's the day-to-day living that

wears you out. -Anton Chekov

From Spirituality & Health magazine (May/June 2005):

Aging: Why That Cruise or Spa Vacation Really Can Be Gene Therapy

Psychological stress not only makes you feel older, it ages you on a cellular

level. That’s according to a University of California, San Francisco, study of

58 women, ages 20-50, all of whom were biological mothers either of a

chronically ill child (39 women, so-called " caregivers " ) or a healthy child (19

women, or " controls " ). Both the caregivers and controls were given a

standardized questionnaire assessing their level of perceived stress during the

previous month as well as their objective stress (caregiver status, and duration

of caregiving stress). The researchers also measured three biological factors in

their subjects’ immune system cells. As expected, most women who cared for a

chronically ill child reported that they were more stressed than women in the

control group. The study found that, after controlling for the age of the women,

those with more years of caregiving had shorter telomeres — DNA protein

complexes that wear away as cells divide until the aged

cells stop dividing — than the lowest-stress group. Years of caregiving also

correlated with diminished telomerase, an enzyme that protects telomeres, and

higher oxidative stress, which causes DNA damage in cells.

Across both groups, the perception of stress also proved important. The

telomeres of women with the highest perceived psychological stress had " aged "

approximately 10 years more than those of the women in their group who had the

lowest perception of being stressed.

The research team now wants to carry out clinical trials to see if stress

reduction interventions, such as meditation, yoga, or cognitive-behavioral

therapy, would increase telomerase activity and telomere length, or at least

slow the rate of telomere shortening in individuals. (The study findings were

published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 101, No. 41.)

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