Social stressors such as discrimination, family issues, work-related challenges, and financial concerns can contribute to the aging of your immune system.
This is the conclusion of a recent study.
Immune Aging can lead to cancer, heart disease, and other age-related health conditions, as well as reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, including the Covid-19 vaccine, according to lead author Eric Klopack, a postdoctoral scholar at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.
Immune aging can lead to cancer, heart disease… (Image: CNN).
Klopack stated: “Individuals with higher stress scores exhibit an immune profile that appears older, with a lower proportion of ‘warrior’ cells against new diseases and a higher proportion of exhausted T cells.”
T cells are the body’s most important “protective force,” performing several key functions. T “killer” cells can directly eliminate virus-infected and cancerous cells while also helping to remove so-called “zombie cells”, which are aging cells that no longer divide but do not die off.
Sickle-shaped cells are problematic as they release various proteins that affect surrounding tissues. Such cells have been shown to contribute to chronic inflammation. As they accumulate in the body, they promote age-related conditions such as osteoporosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
In addition to finding that individuals reporting higher stress levels had more “zombie cells,” Klopack and colleagues noted that they also had fewer “naive” T cells, which are youthful cells necessary to combat new “invaders.”
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed blood biomarkers from 5,744 adults over the age of 50, collected as part of the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term national study on economic stress, health, marriage, and family among older Americans.
T cells activated by dendritic cells to generate an immune response. (Image: CNN).
Klopack mentioned that participants in the study were asked about their social stress levels, including: “stressful life events, chronic stress, daily stigma, and lifetime stigma.”
Klopack added: “This is the first time detailed immune cell information has been collected in a large national survey.”
The research showed a strong link between stressful life events and fewer “naive” T cells, even after controlling for education level, smoking, alcohol consumption, weight, and race or ethnicity, Klopack said.
However, when considering poor diet and lack of exercise, part of the relationship between social stress levels and immune aging disappeared. This finding suggests that how much our immune system ages when we are stressed is within our control, according to Klopack.
Experts note that when stress hormones flood the body, neural pathways in the brain change, affecting our ability to think and make decisions. Increased anxiety and mood changes can disrupt systems.
“Stress can make us anxious and depressed, lead to insomnia at night, overeating, and consuming more calories than our body needs, as well as excessive smoking or drinking,” renowned neuroscientist Bruce McEwen wrote in a 2017 review on the effects of stress on the brain. McEwen, who discovered in 1968 that the hippocampus can be altered by stress hormones like cortisol, passed away in 2020 after 54 years of research on neuroscience at Rockefeller University in New York City.
“Being stressed can also lead us to neglect meeting friends, skipping work, or reducing our participation in regular physical activities,” McEwen wrote.
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What is Social Stress? Social stress is the stress that arises from an individual’s relationships with others and from the social environment in general. Based on the theory of emotional appraisal, stress occurs when a person evaluates a situation as personally relevant and perceives that they do not have enough resources to cope with or resolve a specific situation. An event that exceeds one’s coping capacity does not necessarily have to occur for a person to experience stress; the mere threat of it is sufficient to induce stress. There are three main categories that cause social stress:
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