Stress in all its forms, including traumatic events, functional stress, and everyday stress, accelerates the aging of the immune system, which can increase a person’s risk of developing cancer, cardiovascular disease and diseases caused by infections such as COVID-19, according to a new report from the University of Southern California. .
The researchers stressed that their findings will help explain age-related health disparities, including the disproportionate toll from the epidemic.
Dr. said. Eric Klopak, senior author of the study, said: “It helps elucidate the mechanisms involved in accelerating immune aging.”
As people age, the immune system naturally begins to decline significantly, a condition called immunodeficiency. With age, a person’s immune system weakens, and it includes too many aging white blood cells and too few functioning white blood cells capable of facing new invaders from bacteria and other diseases.
And immune aging isn’t just linked to cancer; But also cardiovascular disease, increased risk of pneumonia, and decreased efficacy of vaccines.
Explaining the radical health differences in adults of the same age is what the USC researchers decided to find out by trying to discover the relationship between lifetime exposure to stress, a known factor contributing to poor health, and decreased activity in the immune system.
The researchers used large data sets from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a national longitudinal study of the economic, health, marital, family, and public and private support systems of older adults.
To account for exposure to various forms of social stress, the researchers analyzed the responses of a national sample of 5,744 people over the age of 50 who answered a questionnaire designed to assess respondents’ experiences with social stresses, including stressful life events, chronic stress, and life discrimination. The researchers analyzed blood samples from participants using flow cytometry, a laboratory technique that counts and sorts blood cells as they pass one by one through a narrow stream in front of the laser.
Those with higher stress scores showed older-looking immune profiles, lower levels of disease ‘new fighters’ and higher proportions of aging white blood cells.
It may be impossible to control some sources of stress, but researchers say there may be an alternative solution.
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