We¡¯ve often heard that stress is not good for our body, and now novel research conducted by the University of Southern California has found that it actually affects the immunity of our body, making it prone to life-threatening diseases.
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Researchers were trying to find a link between lifetime exposure to stress and declining vigour in the immune system. They looked at enormous data sets from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study, a national longitudinal study of the economic, health, marital, family status, and public and private support systems of older Americans.
Researchers analysed responses from a national sample of 5,744 adults over the age of 50. The questionnaire was designed to assess a respondent's experiences with social stress including stressful life events, chronic stress, everyday discrimination and lifetime discrimination.?
Blood samples from the participants were analysed via flow cytometry -- a test that counts and classifies blood cells. The study showed that people with higher stress scores had older-appearing immune profiles with low percentages of fresh disease fighters and high percentages of worn-out white blood cells.
The link between stressful life events and immature T cells remained strong even after controlling for education, smoking, drinking, BMI, race and ethnicity.?
Some sources of stress could be impossible to control however, researchers seem to have a workaround. T-cells are crucial for immunity. They mature in a gland dubbed the thymus that sits right above the heart, in front of it. As people age, tissue in their thymus shrinks and gets replaced by fatty tissue, resulting in reduced production of immune cells.?
Research in the past has highlighted that this process is accelerated by lifestyle changes including low exercise and poor diet, and both are linked with social stress.?
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Lead study author Eric Klopack, a postdoctoral scholar in the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, explains, "In this study, after statistically controlling for poor diet and low exercise, the connection between stress and accelerated immune ageing wasn't as strong. What this means is people who experience more stress tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits, partly explaining why they have more accelerated immune ageing."
Researchers call for improving diet and exercise habits in older adults to help offset the immune ageing linked with stress.
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