• English
    • Welsh
  • English 
    • English
    • Welsh
  • Login
Search DSpace:
  • Home
  • Research at Cardiff Met
  • Library Services
  • Contact Us
View item 
  • DSpace home
  • Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences
  • Cardiovascular Health and Ageing
  • View item
  • DSpace home
  • Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences
  • Cardiovascular Health and Ageing
  • View item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Shorter telomeres with high telomerase activity are associated with raised allostatic load and impoverished psychosocial resources

Thumbnail
Author
Zalli, Argita
Carvalho, Livia A.
Lin, Jue
Hamer, Mark
Erusalimsky, Jorge
Blackburn, Elizabeth H.
Steptoe, Andrew
Date
2014
Type
Article
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
Recent work has linked psychological stress with premature cellular aging as indexed by reduced leukocyte telomere length. The combination of shorter telomeres with high telomerase activity (TA) may be indicative of active cell stress. We hypothesized that older individuals characterized by shorter telomeres with high TA in unstimulated leukocytes would show signs of high allostatic load and low levels of protective psychosocial resources. We studied 333 healthy men and women aged 54–76 y who underwent laboratory testing in which we measured cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and inflammatory responses to standardized mental stress tasks. The tasks elicited prompt increases in blood pressure (BP), heart rate, cortisol, and mediators of inflammation and reductions in heart rate variability, returning toward baseline levels following stress. However, men having shorter telomeres with high TA showed blunted poststress recovery in systolic BP, heart rate variability, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, together with reduced responsivity in diastolic BP, heart rate, and cortisol, in comparison to men with longer telomeres or men with shorter telomeres and low TA. Shorter telomeres with high TA were also associated with reduced social support, lower optimism, higher hostility, and greater early life adversity. These effects were independent of age, socioeconomic status, and body mass index. We did not observe differences among older women. Our findings suggest that active cell stress is associated with impaired physiological stress responses and impoverished psychosocial resources, reflecting an integration of cellular, systemic, and psychological stress processes potentially relevant to health in older men.
Journal/conference proceeding
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Citation
Zalli, A., Carvalho, L.A., Lin, J., Hamer, M., Erusalimsky, J.D., Blackburn, E.H. and Steptoe, A. (2014) 'Shorter telomeres with high telomerase activity are associated with raised allostatic load and impoverished psychosocial resources', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (12), pp.4519-4524.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10369/7744
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1322145111
Description
This article was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 10th March 2014 (online), available open access at http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1322145111
Collections
  • Cardiovascular Health and Ageing [156]

Related items

Showing items related by title, author, subject and abstract.

  • Thumbnail

    The longitudinal relationship between cortisol responses to mental stress and leukocyte telomere attrition 

    Steptoe, Andrew; Hamer, Mark; Lin, Jue; Blackburn, Elizabeth; Erusalimsky, Jorge (Endocrine Society, 2016-12-14)
    Context: Chronic psychological stress has been associated with shorter telomeres in some studies, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. One possibility is that the neuroendocrine responses associated with ...
  • Thumbnail

    Body mass index is negatively associated with telomere length: a collaborative cross-sectional meta-analysis of 87 observational studies 

    McDonnell, Barry (Oxford University Press, 2018-09-11)
    Background = Even before the onset of age-related diseases, obesity might be a contributing factor to the cumulative burden of oxidative stress and chronic inflammation throughout the life course. Obesity may therefore ...
  • Thumbnail

    Educational attainment but not measures of current socioeconomic circumstances are associated with leukocyte telomere length in healthy older men and women 

    Steptoe, A.; Hamer, M.; Butcher, Lee; Lin, J.; Brydon, L.; Kivimäki, M.; Marmot, M.; Blackburn, E.; Erusalimsky, Jorge (Elsevier, 2011)
    Low socioeconomic status (SES) may be associated with accelerated biological aging, but findings relating SES with telomere length have been inconsistent. We tested the hypotheses that shorter telomere length and telomerase ...

Browse

DSpace at Cardiff MetCommunities & CollectionsBy issue dateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis collectionBy issue dateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

DSpace software copyright © 2002-2015  DuraSpace
Contact us | Send feedback | Administrator