期刊
BRAIN BEHAVIOR AND IMMUNITY
卷 26, 期 4, 页码 573-579出版社
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2012.01.007
关键词
Cellular aging; Challenge; Chronic stress; Stress appraisals; Threat; Telomere length
资金
- Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute of Aging/National Institutes of Health [AG030424, MH64110-01A1]
- Bernard and Barbro Foundation
- Society in Science: Branco Weiss Fellowship
- NIH/NCRR UCSF-CTSI [UL1 RR024131]
Chronic psychological stress is a risk factor for multiple diseases of aging. Accelerated cellular aging as indexed by short telomere length has emerged as a potential common biological mechanism linking various forms of psychological stress and diseases of aging. Stress appraisals determine the degree and type of biological stress responses and altered stress appraisals may be a common psychological mechanism linking psychological stress and diseases of aging. However, no previous studies have examined the relationship between stress appraisals and telomere length. We exposed chronically stressed female caregivers and non-caregiving controls (N = 50; M age = 62.14 +/- 6.10) to a standardized acute laboratory stressor and measured their anticipatory and retrospective threat and challenge appraisals of the stressor. We hypothesized that threat and challenge appraisals would be associated with shorter and longer telomere length respectively, and that chronic caregiving stress would influence telomere length through altered stress appraisals. Higher anticipatory threat appraisals were associated with shorter age-adjusted telomere length (beta = -.32, p = .03), but challenge appraisals and retrospective threat appraisals showed no independent association with telomere length. Caregivers reported significantly higher anticipatory (beta = -.36, p = .006) and retrospective (beta = -.29, p = .03) threat appraisals than controls, but similar challenge appraisals. Although there was no significant main effect of caregiver status on telomere length, caregiving had a significant indirect effect on telomere length through anticipatory threat appraisals. Exaggerated anticipatory threat appraisals may be a common and modifiable psychological mechanism of psychological stress effects on cellular aging. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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