Research has consistently documented that social relationships influence physical health, a link that may implicate systemic inflammation. We examined whether daily social interactions predict levels ...of proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and the soluble receptor for tumor necrosis factor-α (sTNFαRII) and their reactivity to a social stressor. One-hundred twenty-two healthy young adults completed daily diaries for 8 d that assessed positive, negative, and competitive social interactions. Participants then engaged in laboratory stress challenges, and IL-6 and sTNFαRII were collected at baseline and at 25- and 80-min poststressor, from oral mucosal transudate. Negative social interactions predicted elevated sTNFαRII at baseline, and IL-6 and sTNFαRII 25-min poststressor, as well as total output of sTNFαRII. Competitive social interactions predicted elevated baseline levels of IL-6 and sTNFαRII and total output of both cytokines. These findings suggest that daily social interactions that are negative and competitive are associated prospectively with heightened proinflammatory cytokine activity.
Children raised in families with low socioeconomic status (SES) go on to have high rates of chronic illness in adulthood. However, a sizable minority of low-SES children remain healthy across the ...life course, which raises questions about the factors associated with, and potentially responsible for, such resilience. Using a sample of 1,205 middle-aged Americans, we explored whether two characteristics—upward socioeconomic mobility and early parental nurturance—were associated with resilience to the health effects of childhood disadvantage. The primary outcome in our analyses was the presence of metabolic syndrome in adulthood. Results revealed that low childhood SES was associated with higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome at midlife, independently of traditional risk factors. Despite this pattern, half the participants raised in low-SES households were free of metabolic syndrome at midlife. Upward social mobility was not associated with resilience to metabolic syndrome. However, results were consistent with a buffering scenario, in which high levels of maternal nurturance offset the metabolic consequences of childhood disadvantage.
To investigate the association between food insecurity and intimate partner violence in a population-based sample of heterosexual women.
Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association ...between three levels of food insecurity and intimate partner violence.
Data from 6 years of the California Women's Health Survey.
Randomly selected women (n 16 562) aged 18 years and older from the State of California, USA.
We found: (i) that African-American women had a higher prevalence of food insecurity and were more likely to report severe intimate partner violence; (ii) a strong positive association between food insecurity and intimate partner violence; (iii) evidence of effect modification of the association between food insecurity and intimate partner violence by marital status; and (iv) higher odds of intimate partner violence among those reporting more severe food insecurity.
Food insecurity is an important risk indicator for intimate partner violence among women. Understanding the factors that put women, especially minority women, at greatest risk facilitates intervention development.
Negative perceptions of aging can be self-fulfilling prophecies, predicting worse cognitive and physical outcomes. Although older adults are portrayed as either lonely curmudgeons or perfect ...grandparents, little research addresses how perceptions of aging relate to social outcomes. We considered whether more positive expectations about aging encourage older adults to maintain or bolster their social network connections and support.
This study examined baseline, 12-, and 24-month questionnaire data from the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial, a longitudinal randomized volunteer intervention for adults aged 60 years and older. The associations between expectations regarding aging and different types of social support were tested using negative binomial and multiple regression models controlling for relevant covariates such as baseline levels of perceived support availability.
Participants with more positive expectations at baseline made more new friends 2 years later and had greater overall perceived support availability 12 months later. Notably, only participants with at least average perceived support availability at baseline showed an association between expectations and later support availability.
These results are the first to link overall expectations regarding aging to the social domain and suggest that the influence of perceptions of aging is not limited to physical or cognitive function.
Purpose The relationship between obesity and mortality in older adults is debated, with concern that body mass index (BMI) may be an imperfect measure of obesity in this age group. We assessed the ...relationship between three measures of obesity and all-cause mortality in a group of healthy older adults. Methods We analyzed data from the MacArthur Successful Aging Study, a longitudinal study of high-functioning men and women, ages 70–79 years at baseline. We examined 12-year, all-cause mortality risk by BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip circumference ratio (WHR). Proportional hazards regression was used to adjust for gender, race, baseline age, and smoking status. We tested for obesity interactions with gender, race, and smoking status and conducted stratified analyses based on the results of interaction testing. Results There was no association between all-cause mortality and BMI or waist circumference in either unadjusted or adjusted analyses. In contrast, all-cause mortality increased with WHR. There was an interaction with sex, so that there was a graded relationship between WHR and mortality in women (relative hazard, 1.28 per 0.1 increase in WHR; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–1.55) and a threshold relationship in men (relative hazard 1.75 for WHR > 1.0 compared to WHR ≤ 1.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.06–2.91). Conclusion WHR rather than BMI appears to be the more appropriate yardstick for risk stratification of high-functioning older adults.
The current study examines the association between parental support and adolescent sleep under varying levels of family stress. Participants included 316 adolescents (Mage = 16.40 years, 43% male) ...and their parents (Mage = 45.67 years, 91% mothers) from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Both adolescents and parents completed questionnaires and adolescents wore wrist actigraphs and completed self-reports on their sleep for 7 consecutive days. Results indicated that under contexts of family stress, more parental support was linked to longer sleep duration, less sleep variability, and less time spent awake during the night. Findings suggest that under contexts of family stress, cohesive family relationships may provide a sense of stability and security that is necessary for healthful sleep.
Marital quality is an important factor for understanding the relationship between marriage and health. Low-quality relationships may not have the same health benefits as high-quality relationships. ...To understand the association between marital quality and health, we examined associations between two indicators of marital quality (marital support and marital strain) and two biomarkers of inflammation (interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein) among men and women in long-term marriages using data from the Survey of Midlife in the United States (N = 542). Lower levels of spousal support were associated with higher levels of inflammation among women but not men. Higher levels of spousal strain were weakly and inconsistently associated with higher levels of inflammation among women and men; the effects were diminished with the addition of psychosocial and behavioral covariates. These findings suggest marital quality is an important predictor of inflammation, especially among women.
We aimed to examine if neighborhood social cohesion moderated longitudinal associations between baseline reports of discrimination and 10-year changes in leukocyte telomere length (LTL).
Data are ...from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (N = 1064; age range 45-84 years). Baseline discrimination was measured using the Major Experiences of Discrimination Scale (MDS; none, 1 domain, ≥2 domains) and the Experiences of Discrimination Scale (EDS; none, moderate, high). Neighborhood social cohesion at baseline was assessed via a community survey within census tract-defined neighborhoods. 10-year change in LTL was defined as regression to the mean-corrected 10-year difference in the ratio of telomeric DNA to a single-copy gene (T/S).
In linear mixed-effects models, we found that neighborhood social cohesion modified the effect of baseline reports of MDS on 10-year changes in LTL, independent of sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors, and health conditions (p(χ 2) = .01). Among those residing in neighborhoods with low social cohesion, experiencing major discrimination in ≥2 domains was associated with faster LTL attrition over 10 years, compared to reporting no discrimination (β = -0.03; 95% confidence interval: -0.06, -0.003). We found no main associations for either discrimination measure and no interaction between EDS and neighborhood social cohesion.
Results indicate that neighborhood social cohesion is an important dimension of the neighborhood context that may moderate the impact of major experiences of discrimination on telomere length attrition. These findings help advance our understanding of the integral role that neighborhood environments play in attenuating the effect of discrimination on accelerated cell aging.
Abstract
Systemic inflammation is associated with increasing age. Yet, there are limited data about the association between age and systemic inflammation within older adults, and whether older age is ...also associated with cellular and nuclear signaling markers of inflammation. In community-dwelling older adults (N = 262, 60–88 years), systemic levels of C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor II; levels of toll-like receptor-4–stimulated monocytic production of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor α; and resting nuclear levels of activated nuclear factor kappa B and signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT1, STAT3, STAT5) were evaluated. Adjusting for demographic and clinical factors, multivariate linear regression tested the association between age and each inflammatory marker. Age was positively associated with increased levels of interleukin-6 and soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor II (p’s < .05) and with increases in STAT1, STAT3, and STAT5 activation (p’s < .05). However, no relationship was found between age and C-reactive protein, toll-like receptor-4–stimulated interleukin-6/tumor necrosis factor alpha α production, or nuclear factor kappa B. Within a community-dwelling sample of older adults, older age is associated with increases in STAT activation, along with increases of systemic inflammatory cytokines. In older adults, heterogeneity in age-related increases in inflammatory disease risk may be related to individual variability in inflammation.
•An absence of marital and friend relationships related to greater epigenetic aging.•Lower support from family members and friends related to greater epigenetic aging.•Lower social support more ...robustly related to epigenetic aging than social strain.•Epigenetic aging may be a mechanism through which relationships influence health.
Growing evidence suggests that social relationship quality can influence age-related health outcomes, although how the quality of one’s relationships directly relates to the underlying aging process is less clear. We hypothesized that the absence of close relationships as well as lower support and higher strain within existing relationships would be associated with an accelerated epigenetic aging profile among older adults in the Health and Retirement Study. Adults (N = 3,647) aged 50–100 years completed ratings of support and strain in relationships with their spouse, children, other family members, and friends. They also provided a blood sample that was used for DNA methylation profiling to calculate a priori-specified epigenetic aging measures: Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and Dunedin Pace of Aging methylation (DunedinPoAm38). Generalized linear models that adjusted for chronological age, sex, and race/ethnicity and applied a false discovery rate correction revealed that the absence of marital and friend relationships related to an older GrimAge and faster DunedinPoAm38. Among those with existing relationships, lower support from a spouse, child, other family, and friends and higher strain with friends related to an older PhenoAge and GrimAge and faster DunedinPoAm38. In secondary analyses that further adjusted for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, lower support from other family members and friends was associated with greater epigenetic aging. Findings suggest that the absence of close relationships and lower support within existing relationships—particularly with family members and friends—relate to accelerated epigenetic aging in older adulthood, offering one mechanism through which social relationships might influence risk for age-related declines and disease.
PDF
