Caregiving: Lymphocyte Low Rider

Watching TV commercials, if your hair has ‘split ends’ your life is at a crossroads. OMG, what if anyone notices that your ‘telomeres’ are frayed? <grin>

 

Chronic Stress Can Steal Years

From Caregivers' Lifetimes

 

·     … three-decade-long program at Ohio State investigating the links between psychological stress and a weakened immune status.

 

·     … effects of chronic stress can be seen both at the genetic and molecular level in chronic caregivers' bodies.

 

·     Caregivers also differed dramatically with the control group on psychological surveys intended to measure depression, a clear cause of stress.

 

·     “Those symptoms of depression in caregivers were twice as severe as those apparent among the control group,” Kiecolt-Glaser said.

 

·     “Caregivers also had fewer lymphocytes,” Glaser said, “a very important component of the immune system. They also showed a higher level of cytokines, molecules key to the inflammation response, than did the control group.” 

    

·     Other experiments showed that the actual telomeres in blood cells of caregivers were shorter than those of the controls, and that the level of the telomerase repair enzyme among caregivers was also lower.

 

·     Kiecolt-Glaser said that there is ample epidemiological data showing that stressed caregivers die sooner than people not in that role.

 

·     “Now we have a good biological reason for why this is the case,” she said. “We now have a mechanistic progression that shows why, in fact, stress is bad for you, how it gets into the body and how it gets translated into a bad biological outcome.”

 

·     Much of the Ohio State work is now shifting to studies on how to intervene with that stress in hopes of slowing the weakening of the immune system in highly stressed people.

 

Lymphocyte Low Rider, Patrick Leer

http://www.youtube.com/daddyleer

http://www.myspace.com/patrickleer

Tags: caregiving