Stress Is Making Your Cells Old

Stress plays a role in both your physiological and psychological health. Physically, stress can cause gastrointestinal issues such as heartburn, nausea and upset stomach, as well as cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure. And emotionally it's not much better. While a little stress can help you focus, severe chronic stress can cause an inability to focus and can lead to accidents. Stress also manifests in other sicknesses and diseases since stress can weaken the immune system. Everyone responds to stress differently and everyone handles their stress differently, but a new study shows that your cells also respond to aging…and it makes them old.

Image Credit: signs-of-stress.com

The degree of stress in a person's life is highly dependent on individual factors such as physical health, the quality of interpersonal relationships, the degree others depend on you for commitments and responsibilities, and the amount of support we receive from others. It's been estimated that 75% of the general population experiences at least "some stress" every two weeks, with half of those experiences being a moderate or high level of stress.

Researching Stress

This study, released January 24, 2012, was done with the goal of examining the psychological process of how people respond to a stressful event and how that impacts their neurobiology and cellular health. Fifty women participated in the study. About half of them were caring for relatives with dementia. The women were then told they had to participate in stressful tasks in the laboratory such as public speaking and solving math problems. The scientists then measured telomeres, which are the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. The study showed that women who had a high level of stress while waiting to complete the tasks had shortened telomeres. Short telomeres show an older cell with an increased risk for chronic diseases associated with aging such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. Telomeres are found on the tips of chromosomes and are made of repetitive sequence, which can't be used to pass along genetic information. They function as a seal preventing the chromosome from damage when DNA replicates. If the telomere is shorter, or non-existent, it may not be able to prevent the chromosome from sticking together and causing disease.

The minor stressful events in the laboratory may translate into larger stress situations in real life. As demonstrated by the caregivers having a higher level of stress, the high-anxiety situation (caring for a relative) impacts how the participants were able to handle smaller stress tasks faces in daily life. These participants are more likely to show physiological symptoms of stress during situations such as losing their keys.

Before You Freak Out

Dr. Elissa Epel, an associate professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, looked at this study as "getting close to understanding how chronic stress translates into the present moment." Researchers who focus on the impact of stress were looking at the psychological process of how people respond to a stressful event and how it affects their neurobiology and cellular health. The study also found that those participants who are caregivers anticipated a situation with a higher level of stress than non-caregivers. This put them at risk for short telomeres, and demonstrated that higher levels of anticipated threat in daily life may promote cellular aging in chronically stress individuals.

Currently stress is treated with tranquilizers, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety medications, which account for one-fourth of the prescriptions written in the U.S each year. This study has the potential to allow scientists and doctors to design targeted interventions that reduce the risk for disease and cellular aging associated with disease in stressed individuals. In the mean time, there are easy ways to reduce stress in your life. The most obvious is removing oneself from the person, thing or task that is causing the stress. Other de-stressing ideas include humor, a brisk walk outside to reenergize, rehydrate, or taking a nap.

^{He knows how to de-stress Image Credit}

References

Stress

Anticipation of Stressful Situations Accelerates Cellular Aging

Stress facts

Stress Management

TELOMERES AND AGING