Don't let the cells age – think about the troubles tomorrow
Anxiety ages telomeres
Nadezhda Markina, Infox.ruThe ability to anticipate future events, including unpleasant, stressful ones, seems to allow us to prepare for them, and therefore it is useful.
But at the same time, as experts from the University of California at San Francisco have shown, anxiety due to future stresses ages the cells of our body. Because it shortens telomeres.
The study involved 50 women. Scientists assessed the degree of anxiety they feel before a stressful event, such as a public speech or a math test. It turned out that those who worry more age faster at the cellular level. This is expressed in the shortening of telomeres, counters of cell division, which are considered indicators of biological age.
Recall that telomeres are DNA at the ends of chromosomes, consisting of several repeats of a short sequence. When dividing, they do not double, which means that they become shorter in each generation of cells. There is a limit of division in the length of telomeres.
Previous studies have shown that short telomeres are an indicator of cell aging and are associated with an increased risk of chronic age–related diseases, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease.
"By studying stress, we are trying to assess how the body's response to stressful events is mediated at the neurobiological and cellular levels," says Elissa Epel, head of the study. The result showed that the ability to anticipate troubles and problems in advance shortens telomeres, wears out cells.
Scientists believe that this property is inherent in individuals who are generally in a state of chronic stress. "How your body reacts to serious stresses depends on how it copes with the minor stresses of everyday life, for example, losing a key, standing in a traffic jam, being late for a meeting, etc.," explain the authors of the work, which will be published in the May issue of the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity. (The press release "Anticipation of Stressful Situations Accelerates Cellular Aging" is published on the UCSF – VM website.)
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22.02.2012