Money worries rank nearly as high as being a carer or suffering bereavement or divorce, study reveals
Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“Dr Hans Selye, the Hungarian- Canadian endocrinologist was also known as, the “father of stress”. He was one of the first scientists to reserach the connection between stress and ill health in the 1970’s. So, it’s not a surprise to see this latest research linking financial stress and the higher chance of illness and given the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on individuals, families and businesses, it’s something clinicians need to be aware of. He developed a concept which he turned into a graph called the Human Function Curve. Where you plot stress or arousal on the X axis against performance on the Y axis.
To a certain extent, stress improves performance, but there comes a point where continued ongoing stress becomes detrimental, pushing people beyond peak performance and into the spectrum of ill health. Initially so-called functional problems such as musculoskeletal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, headache and migraine syndrome et cetera. With prolonged ongoing stress, there is a chance that actual pathology/disease process can develop. So stress is not just something that manifests as psychological/mental health disease. It has a significant impact on physical disease process and physical symptoms.
Professor Frank Hucklebridge (UK) was one of the first to coin the term psychoneuroimmunology in the 1990’s, I have the privilege of having Frank as one of my supervisors, for my MPhil/PhD in the early 2000’s (although I never completed my research due to other work and family commitments).
A team from UCL recently found that interactions between the immune, nervous and endocrine systems were worse in people experiencing both sudden and ongoing stressful experiences.
For the new study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, the researchers looked at blood samples taken from nearly 5,000 over-50s taking part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
They analysed blood concentrations of four biomarkers — two proteins involved in the innate immune response to inflammation (C-reactive protein and fibrinogen), and two hormones involved in the physiology of the stress response (cortisol and IGF-1).
People were divided into three groups of biomarker activity, indicating a low risk to health, moderate risk and high risk.
Exposure to stressful circumstances of any kind, ranging from being an informal carer to experiencing a bereavement or divorce in the past two years, was linked to a 61 per cent higher chance of being in the high-risk group four years later.
Meanwhile, those who reported only “financial strain”, defined as feeling they may not have enough financial resources to meet their future needs, were 59 per cent more likely to be in the high-risk group four years on.
A great tool for managing stress is optimising breathing behaviour, which can have a very positive impact on calming the sympathetic or stress response of the autonomic nervous system, which seems to be prevalent in many people these days.”
https://www.thehealthequation.co.uk/breathing-therapy-and-techniques/
The Times
Kat Lay
People who took part in a study and reported “financial strain”, defined as a feeling that they may not have enough money to meet their future needs, were 59 per cent more likely to be in the high-risk group four years on
Financial strain can result in worse biological health, a new study from London researchers suggests.
A team from UCL found that interactions between the immune, nervous and endocrine systems were worse in people experiencing both sudden and ongoing stressful experiences.
The systems must communicate well in order to keep the body in good health. Disruption of those interactions has been linked to illnesses ranging from heart disease to depression and schizophrenia.
For the new study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, the researchers looked at blood samples taken from nearly 5,000 over-50s taking part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
They analysed blood concentrations of four biomarkers — two proteins involved in the innate immune response to inflammation (C-reactive protein and fibrinogen), and two hormones involved in the physiology of the stress response (cortisol and IGF-1).
People were divided into three groups of biomarker activity, indicating a low risk to health, moderate risk and high risk.
Exposure to stressful circumstances of any kind, ranging from being an informal carer to experiencing a bereavement or divorce in the past two years, was linked to a 61 per cent higher chance of being in the high-risk group four years later.
The researchers said the effect appeared cumulative, with a 19 per cent increase in the chance of being in that group for each stressful experience.
Meanwhile, those who reported only “financial strain”, defined as feeling they may not have enough financial resources to meet their future needs, were 59 per cent more likely to be in the high-risk group four years on.
The body’s response to stress mimics its response to sickness, the researchers said, with similar pathways in the immune system activated.
The paper’s lead author, a PhD candidate, Odessa Hamilton, said: “When the immune and neuroendocrine systems function well together, homeostasis is maintained and health is preserved. But chronic stress can disrupt this biological exchange and lead to disease.
“We found that financial stress was most detrimental to biological health, although more research is needed to establish this for certain. This may be because this form of stress can invade many aspects of our lives, leading to family conflict, social exclusion, and even hunger or homelessness.”
More than 12 per cent of the study’s participants reported experiencing a high level of stress, with more than 8,000 experiences reported. The high stress group tended to be younger, and were more likely to be female, to smoke and to drink fewer than three alcoholic drinks each week.
The findings held true even after taking into account participants’ genetics, the researchers said.