Can Severe Emotional Distress Speed Up Aging by Shortening Telomeres?

[Ivan Seeking]

A team of researchers led by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, has found that severe emotional distress -- like a divorce or caring for an ill parent -- may speed up the aging process by shortening the life of telomeres. Telomeres are those bits of DNA found at the tip of each cell's chromosomes. [continued]

http://www.soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment.php4?seg=471

full article
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/40/1/27

better
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/49/17312

 

[JamesU]

I thought that strss caused improper protein production, an that was why.

or maybe I don't know anything

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Do they anywere speculate on what physiological changes associated with stress can cause DNA/dmg, thus far its correlation right, there's probably a lot of habbits that differ between a stressed and a non stressed person that can contribute to aging.

 

[Astronuc]

This might help those who have to deal with a death or divorce.

Art of Saying Goodbye: How to Survive the Loss of a Love
Arthur Samuels, MD

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a rapidly changing society where loss—as a consequence of age, sickness, separation, financial disaster, or relocation—is commonplace, so too is our struggle for stability.

The Art of Saying Goodbye is a unique new title to help you manage, and ultimately transform, loss into an opportunity for personal growth.

In The Art of Saying Goodbye, Dr. Arthur Samuels, a psychiatrist with over forty years of clinical experience, places grief in a new light, as a measure of how well we have lived and how deeply we’ve loved. Through his gentle guidance, you’ll learn to transform your loss, using the experience as a rite of passage. The Art of Saying Goodbye encourages you to free yourself from the past, accept the impermanence of the present, and embrace the future—ultimately savoring the moment, the only time you can be really alive.

"Please listen to Dr. Samuels. He practices what he says. That is why all of us can profit from his insight and experience. If you bring your body and experience to read this book, it’ll become a source of tremendous help." —Thich Nhat Hanh, author, poet, and Buddhist Master

Similar stress occurs when one looses a job, or otherwise is forced into a 'life changing situation'.

It can help for one to open up to others, particularly one's friends, who can offer support.

 

[arildno]

From what I've heard, the telomere shortening as the basis of the aging phenomenon is not a generally accepted theory.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

It's not, telomere shortening just correlates with age, cells drop into a scenesence like arrest before the get too short. As far as I can remember the aging phenotype has to do with accumulating DNA damage during life (this is also apparent from people suffering from werner syndrome which display premature aging due to loss of the werner protein which is required for DNA damage repair) oxidative stress and the sort. Also loss of genomic methylation is supposed to play a role but there are likely to be more factors. As I read the literature about it it probably starts with loss of the capability to repair damage in general which probably starts somewhere around your 30's. The specific changes that lead to this loss represent the holy grail for many scientists.