https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uoia-ds031121.php
News Release 11-Mar-2021
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
The chronic stress of living in neighborhoods with high rates of violence and poverty alters gene activity in immune cells, according to a new study of low-income single Black mothers on the South Side of Chicago.
The changes in stress-related gene expression reflect the body's "hunker down" response to long-term threat, a physiological strategy for lying low and considering new actions rather than launching an immediate "fight-or-flight" response. This has implications for health outcomes in communities of color and other marginalized populations, said researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at the University of Kentucky and UCLA. The researchers published the study in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
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"These hunker-down responses are the body's strategy for conserving resources and persevering in the face of overwhelming adversity," Cole said. "Instead of preparing to fight or flee, the body bides its time and preserves itself for better days in the future. But it's important to get to that better future, or the hunkered-down body may not do the ongoing maintenance work needed for optimal health."
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"Increased glucocorticoid activity is typically associated with aging, so it's as if these women are showing signs of accelerated aging, which is thought to be one reason that stress can lead to worse health outcomes," Rittschof said.
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