Social stress causes premature aging of the immune system

Social stress like discrimination and problems with family, work and money. can contribute to your immune system. aging.

This is the result of a recent study.

Immune aging can lead to cancer, heart disease and other age-related health conditions and reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, such as the Covid-19 vaccine, lead author Eric Klopack, an academic Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Immune aging can lead to cancer, heart disease. (Photo: CNN).

"Those with higher stress scores had an immune profile that looked older, with a lower percentage of new disease-fighting 'warriors' and a higher percentage of worn-out T cells," said Klopack.

T cells are the body's most important "defense force," performing a number of key functions. Killer T cells can directly eliminate virus-infected and cancerous cells, and help eliminate so-called "zombie cells," aging cells that no longer divide but do not die. .

Sickle cells are in trouble because they release a variety of proteins that affect the tissues around them. Such cells have been shown to contribute to chronic inflammation. As more and more accumulate in the body, they promote conditions related to aging, such as osteoporosis, obstructive lung disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

In addition to finding that people who reported higher stress levels had more "zombie cells," Klopack and colleagues found, they also had fewer "naive" T cells, which are young cells, necessary to fend off new "invaders".

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed blood biomarkers of 5,744 adults over the age of 50, collected as part of the Health and Wellness Study. retirement, a longitudinal national study of economic, health, marital and family stress in older Americans.

T cells are activated by dendritic cells to induce an immune response. (Photo: CNN).

The study participants were asked about their levels of social stress, including: "stressful life events, chronic stress, daily stigma and lifelong stigma," said Klopack. ".

"This is the first time that detailed information about immune cells has been collected in a large national survey," Klopack said.

The study found a strong link between stressful life events and fewer "naive" T cells, even after controlling for education, smoking, alcohol intake, weight, and strain. race or ethnicity, Mr. Klopack said.

However, when it comes to poor diet and little exercise, part of the link between social stress levels and the aging immune system is gone. That finding indicates that how much our immune system ages when we're stressed is within our control, says Klopack.

According to experts, when stress hormones flood the body, neural circuits in the brain change, affecting our ability to think and make decisions. Increased anxiety and mood can change systems.

"Stress can make us anxious and depressed, lose sleep at night, binge eat and take in more calories than our bodies need, and smoke or drink excessively," the psychiatrist said. Renowned neuroscientist Bruce McEwen wrote in a 2017 review of the effects of stress on the brain. McEwen, who in 1968 discovered that the hippocampus of the brain can be altered by stress hormones such as cortisol, died in 2020 after 54 years of neuroscience research at Rockefeller University in New York City.

"Being stressed can also cause us to neglect seeing friends, miss work, or reduce our level of participation in regular physical activity," McEwen wrote.

What is social stress?

Social stress is stress that stems from a person's relationships with others and from the general social environment. Based on the emotional appraisal theory, stress arises when a person evaluates a situation that is personally relevant and finds that they do not have the resources to cope with or resolve a particular situation. An event that is beyond tolerance does not have to happen for a person to experience stress, just the threat of it is enough to cause stress.

There are three main groups that cause social stress:

1. First, sudden, life-changing life events that require an individual to adapt quickly (eg, sexual assault, sudden trauma).
2. Second, chronic fatigue states are persistent events that require an individual to adapt over a long period of time (eg, divorce, unemployment).
3. Third, daily troubles are small events that occur that require an individual to adapt throughout the day (eg, bad traffic, disagreements). When stress becomes chronic, people experience emotional, behavioral, and physiological changes, which can lead to an increased risk of mental disorders and physical illness.