By
now, most people know that stress can take a serious toll on mental and
physical health. And when that stress is prolonged, studies suggest, it can
increase the risk of certain health conditions like asthma, ulcers, heart
attack, and stroke.
اضافة اعلان
Now, new research suggests that certain types
of stress can even age your immune system.
Using an existing body of data, researchers
looked at survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than
5,700 adults in the
US ages 50 and older, and cross-referenced them with immune
cell counts from participants’ blood. The survey asked respondents about their
experiences with social stressors like job strain, chronic stress, stressful
life events, every day or lifetime discrimination (including sexism or ageism),
and traumatic life events.
The team found that higher levels of reported
stress were associated with older immune system profiles. The findings were
published in The Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.
What
the findings suggest
As your immune system ages,
your body has a less coordinated response to new threats because it produces
different types of immune cells in different proportions than it does when you
are younger, said Eric Klopack, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral
researcher of gerontology at the
University of Southern California. At the same
time, older, more worn-out immune cells tend to dominate over newer, more agile
ones, resulting in a less robust immune response.
Until now, no one has fully investigated the
relationship between social stress and immunological function, at least not
with this granularity, said Matthew Yousefzadeh, who researches aging at the
University of Minnesota and was not involved with the new research. And while
the new study is limited in that it only looked at a few kinds of immune cells
— specifically the T cells CD4 and CD8 — Yousefzadeh said that they are a
pretty good indicator of immunity robustness. “It’s sort of a peek underneath
the hood of the car and how well you’ll do with the infections,” he said.
The new research touches on a timely concern
amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “I think a lot of people right now are looking
at ways to rejuvenate or stimulate or boost the immune systems, particularly
with aging,” Yousefzadeh said. And so any information on how immune aging
works, or how it might differ for certain people, is valuable for public
health.
What
you can do
While
the researchers found that certain forms of social stress were linked with
changes in participants’ immune cells, Klopack cautioned that experts do not
fully understand how one influences the other.
When they statistically controlled for
behaviors like smoking or drinking, some of those associations with immune
aging “went away or were reduced,” he said, suggesting that those behaviors may
have played some role in the aging of their immune systems. One way to prevent
immune cell aging, then, Klopack said, may be to be mindful of unhealthy
habits.
Studies like this one make visible what
people who endure discrimination and trauma already intuitively know, said
Renee Eddy, a psychotherapist based in New York City: Stress takes a tangible
toll on physical health.
Mitigating those effects requires taking
stock of your emotions, Eddy said. Everyone is affected by stress differently,
she said, so the ways they process it can vary too. Focusing on what brings you
joy, and where you can find social support, can help. That may mean pursuing
hobbies, spending time with loved ones, or unplugging from work or social media
when you can.
Mindfulness practices, exercise, and healthy
eating habits can also help you feel good physically, which in turn can make
you feel good mentally, she added.
If you experience social stressors on a daily
basis — whether at work, in your social life, or at home — think about what you
can control to keep them in check, Eddy said. If a friend’s political views are
consistently causing you anguish, can you limit your contact with them or
change your social circle? If a work colleague is putting you down because of
your age, would it help to confront them about it? Looking at the full context
of where and how stressful situations manifest in your life is the first step
in deciding how you can move forward.
Of course, there will be situations that you
cannot control, Eddy added, but the more you can do to better understand their
effect on you, the more you can do to help alleviate them.
There is a lot more to uncover, Klopack said.
The new study looked at older, mostly white adults, at one point in time,
relying on self-reported stress levels. Scientists don’t know how stress
affects the immune systems of younger people, or how changes to immune systems
may persist.
One thing to remember, however, is that the biggest thing “that
contributes to immune aging is just aging,” said Idan Shalev, a bio-behavioral
health scientist at Pennsylvania State University who studies the effects of
stress across life spans. So the strategies for warding off immune aging are
usually the same ones that will ward off the effects of aging in general:
following a healthy diet, getting regular exercise, limiting or avoiding
smoking and drinking, and getting good sleep. “Having social supports is also
very important, like family, friends,” Shalev said, since loneliness can also
affect the immune system.
We should all be implementing those good
habits right away, he added, and not just waiting until you’re close to
retirement.
Another way to interpret this new study, Yousefzadeh
said, is that social stressors like trauma and discrimination can affect life
expectancy. But while there is much research interest in rejuvenating our
immune system, science has yet to find a way to reverse aging, he added. So
it’s important to do everything you can to keep your immune system robust, he
said, because once things decline, you cannot really go back to how things
were.
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