According to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stress, even at a cellular level, affected mothers of chronically ill children. This was from a study that examined 58 healthy pre-menopausal women, 19 of whom were biological mothers who had healthy children and 39 of whom were “caregiving mothers” who had chronically ill children. (The study is published in the December 7, 2004 issue, volume 101, no. 49, pp. 17312–17315.)
The Washington Post started its November 30 summary of the article (registration required) as follows:
“Scientists have identified the first direct link between stress and aging, a finding that could explain why intense, long-term emotional strain can make people get sick and grow old before their time.
“Chronic stress appears to hasten the shriveling of the tips of the bundles of genes inside cells, which shortens their life span and speeds the body's deterioration, according to a small, first-of-its-kind study involving mothers caring for chronically ill children.”
The lead researcher, Elissa S. Epel, Ph.D., is from the University of California, San Francisco, which issued a press release about the report. The headline of the release was “UCSF-led study suggests link between psychological stress and cell aging.”
This is a portion of the release:
The article itself, which is in the Proceedings of the Academy, has a very interesting beginning:
We know that caregiving can be stressful for the caregiver. But the findings of this study may also apply to others who are subject to psychological stress. The last sentence of the article puts it this way:
The New York Times has a November 30 article entitled “Too Much Stress May Give Genes Gray Hair.” The article (registration required) includes the following:
“The findings, being reported today, are the first to link psychological stress so directly to biological age.
“The researchers found that blood cells from women who had spent many years caring for a disabled child were, genetically, about a decade older than those from peers who had much less caretaking experience.”
The findings of the study tie in with a previous posting in my blog: “An alert for victims of traumatically-caused chronic back pain and their attorneys.” That posting begins “Chronic back pain can shrink the gray matter in a sufferer's brain.”
More and more, science is helping document the non-obvious effects of serious trauma — effects not only to the obvious victim of the trauma, but also the potentially severe effects to the caregiving victims.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: MSNBC has a two-minute video clip that includes comments by Dr. Epel, the lead researcher. Go to www.msnbc.com, search on Epel in the search bar on the left side of the screen, and follow the appropriate links. (You will need to accept cookies and use Microsoft Windows Media Player to run the clip.)
LINKS:
Article: “Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress”
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0407162101v1.pdf
New York Times article (free registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/health/30age.html
Outoftheboxlawyering article on “Chronic back pain can shrink the gray matter in a sufferer's brain.”
http://www.outoftheboxlawyering.com/archives/000065.html
Press release from University of California, San Francisco
http://pub.ucsf.edu/newsservices/releases/200411227/
Washington Post article (free registration required)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20394-2004Nov29.html?sub=AR