Stress in Life May Cause Aging by Shortening Cell Component Telomere in Cell May be Shortened By Stress in LifeNumerous studies have implied or demonstrated a connection between a stressful life and poor health. Intuition tells you that tension, deadlines, emotional upheaval aren’t great for your health. You no doubt have heard of the “Type A” personality, the fellow who has to do everything yesterday and has no patience, who slams on the horn in traffic jams and can’t sit still.
Now a study by researchers suggests that the shortening of a putative vital cellular component called a telomere may be a mechanism whereby stress performs it’s harmful work. “A telomere is a region of highly repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome.” See What is a Telomere. Telomeres are being studied as possible determinants of aging, since older animals tend to have shorter telomeres.
Researchers reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say they have evidence that stress can shorten the ends of telomeres faster. In their study, they compared the telomeres of mothers of chronically ill children with mothers of children without these problems. “Women with the highest levels of perceived stress have telomeres shorter on average by the equivalent of at least one decade of additional aging compared to low stress women.” See Elissa S. Epel,Elizabeth Blackburn,Jue Lin, et al. at Accelerated Telomere Shortening in Response to Life Stress
http://purplemedicalblog.blogspot.com/2004/12/stress-in-life-may-cause-aging-by.html
