4 research outputs found
Short sleep duration is associated with shorter telomere length in healthy men: findings from the Whitehall II cohort study
Background: Shorter telomere length and poor sleep are more prevalent at older ages, but their relationship is uncertain. This study explored associations between sleep duration and telomere length in a sample of healthy middle and early old age people.
Methods: Participants were 434 men and women aged 63.3 years on average drawn from the Whitehall II cohort study. Sleep duration was measured by self-report.
Results: There was a linear association between sleep duration and leukocyte telomere length in men but not in women
(P = 0.035). Men reporting shorter sleep duration had shorter telomeres, independently of age, body mass index, smoking, educational attainment, current employment, cynical hostility scores and depressive symptoms. Telomeres were on average 6% shorter in men sleeping 5 hours or fewer compared with those sleeping more than 7 hours per night.
Conclusion: This study adds to the growing literature relating sleep duration with biomarkers of aging, and suggests that
shortening of telomeres might reflect mechanisms through which short sleep contributes to pathological conditions in
older men
Effect of short-term weight loss on mental stress-induced cardiovascular and pro-inflammatory responses in women
Epidemiologic evidence links psychosocial stress with obesity but experimental studies
examining the mechanisms that mediates the effect of stress on adiposity are scarce. The aim of
this study was to investigate whether changes in adiposity following minimal weight loss affect
heightened stress responses in women, and examine the role of the adipokine leptin in driving
inflammatory responses. Twenty-three overweight or obese, but otherwise healthy, women
(M age ¼ 30.41 ± 8.0 years; BMI ¼ 31.9 ± 4.1 kg/m2
) completed standardized acute mental stress
before and after a 9-week calorie restriction program designed to modify adiposity levels.
Cardiovascular (blood pressure and heart rate) and inflammatory cytokines (leptin and
interleukin-6; IL-6) responses to mental stress were assessed several times between baseline
and a 45-min post-stress recovery period. There were modest changes in adiposity measures
while the adipokine leptin was markedly reduced (27%) after the intervention. Blood pressure
reactivity was attenuated (3.38 ± 1.39 mmHg) and heart rate recovery was improved
(2.07 ± 0.96 Bpm) after weight loss. Blood pressure responses were inversely associated with
changes in waist to hip ratio post intervention. Decreased levels of circulating leptin following
weight loss were inversely associated with the IL-6 inflammatory response to stress (r ¼ 0.47).
We offered preliminary evidence suggesting that modest changes in adiposity following a brief
caloric restriction program may yield beneficial effect on cardiovascular stress responses. In
addition, reductions in basal leptin activity might be important in blunting pro-inflammatory
responses. Large randomized trials of the effect of adiposity on autonomic responses are thus
warranted
Disruption of multisystem responses to stress in type 2 diabetes: investigating the dynamics of allostatic load
Psychological stress-related processes are thought to contribute
to the development and progression of type 2 diabetes, but the
biological mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Here, we
tested the notion that people with type 2 diabetes experience
chronic allostatic load, manifest as dynamic disturbances in reactivity
to and recovery from stress across multiple (cardiovascular, neuroendocrine,
inflammatory, metabolic) biological systems, coupled
with heightened experience of chronic life stress. We carried out
an experimental comparison of 140 men and women aged 50–75 y
with type 2 diabetes and 280 nondiabetic individuals matched on
age, sex, and income. We monitored blood pressure (BP) and heart
rate, salivary cortisol, plasma interleukin (IL)-6, and total cholesterol
in response to standardized mental stress, and assessed salivary cortisol
over the day. People with type 2 diabetes showed impaired
poststress recovery in systolic and diastolic BP, heart rate and cholesterol,
and blunted stress reactivity in systolic BP, cortisol, cholesterol,
and IL-6. Cortisol and IL-6 concentrations were elevated, and
cortisol measured over the day was higher in the type 2 diabetes
group. Diabetic persons reported greater depressive and hostile
symptoms and greater stress experience than did healthy controls.
Type 2 diabetes is characterized by disruption of stress-related processes
across multiple biological systems and increased exposure to
life stress. Chronic allostatic load provides a unifying perspective
with implications for etiology and patient management
Shorter telomeres with high telomerase activity are associated with raised allostatic load and impoverished psychosocial resources
Recent work has linked psychological stress with premature cellular aging as indexed by reduced leukocyte telomere length. The combination of shorter telomeres with high telomerase activity (TA) may be indicative of active cell stress. We hypothesized that older individuals characterized by shorter telomeres with high TA in unstimulated leukocytes would show signs of high allostatic load and low levels of protective psychosocial resources. We studied 333 healthy men and women aged 54–76 y who underwent laboratory testing in which we measured cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and inflammatory responses to standardized mental stress tasks. The tasks elicited prompt increases in blood pressure (BP), heart rate, cortisol, and mediators of inflammation and reductions in heart rate variability, returning toward baseline levels following stress. However, men having shorter telomeres with high TA showed blunted poststress recovery in systolic BP, heart rate variability, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, together with reduced responsivity in diastolic BP, heart rate, and cortisol, in comparison to men with longer telomeres or men with shorter telomeres and low TA. Shorter telomeres with high TA were also associated with reduced social support, lower optimism, higher hostility, and greater early life adversity. These effects were independent of age, socioeconomic status, and body mass index. We did not observe differences among older women. Our findings suggest that active cell stress is associated with impaired physiological stress responses and impoverished psychosocial resources, reflecting an integration of cellular, systemic, and psychological stress processes potentially relevant to health in older men