 
Study
confirms that stress helps speed aging
Researchers uncover link to emotional strain
Nov. 30: A new study shows that major life stresses can cause damage
to the body's cells. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.
Nightly News
Scientists have identified the first direct
link between stress and aging, a finding that could
explain why intense, long-term emotional strain can make people
get sick and grow old before their time.
Chronic stress appears to hasten the shriveling of the tips of the
bundles of genes inside cells, which shortens their life span and
speeds the body's deterioration, according to a small, first-of-its-kind
study involving mothers caring for chronically ill children.
If the findings are confirmed, they could provide the first explanation
on a cellular level for the well-documented association between
psychological stress and increased risk of physical disease, as
well as the common perception that unrelenting emotional pressure
accelerates the aging process.
"There is this deeply held belief that stress leads to premature
aging. But there is no hard evidence for how this might happen,"
said Elissa Epel, a psychiatrist at the University of California
at San Francisco (UCSF), who helped conduct the research. "This
is the first time that psychological stress has been linked to a
cellular indicator of aging in healthy people."
•More health news
The findings could lead to new ways to detect the early physical
effects of stress and monitor whether attempts to alleviate its
effects are working, she said.
While cautioning that the findings need to be confirmed by additional
research, other scientists said the results represent an unprecedented
step in deciphering the intricacies of the mind-body connection.
"This is a real landmark observation," said Robert M.
Sapolsky of Stanford University, who wrote a commentary accompanying
the paper in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences. "This is a huge interdisciplinary leap . . . a
great study."
Dennis
H. Novack, who studies the link between emotions and health at Drexel
University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, agreed.
'Mind and body'
"Everybody's trying to figure out what causes aging and premature
aging. We all know that stress seems to age people -- just look
at the aging of our presidents after four years," he said.
The new study "demonstrated that
there is no such thing as a separation of mind and body -- the very
molecules in our bodies are responsive to our psychological environment."
Epel and her colleagues studied 39 women ages 20 to 50 who had been
experiencing grinding stress for years because they were caring
for a child suffering from a serious chronic illness, such as autism
or cerebral palsy, and 19 other very similar women whose children
were healthy.
The researchers examined structures inside cells called telomeres.
Telomeres are the caps at the ends of chromosomes -- the molecules
that carry genes. Every time a cell divides, telomeres get shorter.
In the natural aging process, the telomeres eventually get so short
that cells can no longer divide, and they then die.
As more and more cells reach the end of their telomeres and die,
the inexorable process produces the effects of aging -- muscles
weaken, skin wrinkles, eyesight and hearing fade, organs fail, and
thinking abilities diminish.
The researchers also measured levels of an enzyme called telomerase,
which helps rebuild telomeres to stave off this process. Telomerase
levels naturally decline with age.
"As the telomeres shorten, telomerase is trying to keep up,"
said Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology
at UCSF who helped conduct the study. "Over the long term,
we lose the race and our telomeres do get shorter."
The researchers found that chronic stress appears to accelerate
this process. The longer a woman had been caring for a sick child,
the shorter her telomeres, the lower her levels of telomerase and
the higher her levels of "oxidative stress." Oxidative
stress is a process in which "free radicals" in the body
damage DNA, including telomeres.
Perceived
stress
A key factor appears to be people's perception of how much stress
they are under, the researchers found. The greater a woman's perception
of her stress in the study, the worse she scored on all these factors.
Compared with women with the lowest levels of perceived stress,
women with the highest perceived stress had telomeres equivalent
to someone 10 years older, the researchers found.
"The shorter the telomeres, the higher the perceived stress
and the lower the telomerase," Blackburn said. "It was
just the same with oxidative stress -- the worse the perceived psychological
stress, the greater the oxidative stress. It all went in the same
direction."
The researchers studied telomeres and telomerase in white blood
cells taken from blood samples. Prematurely aged white blood cells
alone could make people more prone to illness because white blood
cells are a key part of the immune system. But the findings probably
hold true for other types of cells as well, Epel said, and the researchers
now plan to do studies to confirm that.
It is unclear exactly how stress might affect telomeres and telomerase
levels, but it could be that chronically elevated levels of stress
hormones such as cortisol damage the telomeres and other genes in
the body and lower telomerase levels, inhibiting the cells' ability
to respond.
"That's the obvious hypothesis that jumps out," Blackburn
said.
Whatever the mechanism, the findings indicate that doctors could
monitor telomere length and telomerase levels for signs that people
under chronic stress are suffering adverse effects, Epel said.
"Telomere length and telomerase may be used as a way to monitor
health. Very low telomerase or very short telomeres might serve
as a kind of red flag," Epel said.
If someone appears headed for trouble, doctors could recommend meditation,
yoga or other stress-reduction techniques, she said.
"The findings emphasize the importance of managing life stress,
to take it seriously if one feels stressed, to give your body a
break, and make life changes that promote well-being," Epel
said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
For the
complete article and further reading go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6613721/
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September 19, 2006
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