Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Psychol Sci. 2022 Jun;33(6):859-873. doi: 10.1177/09567976211059502. Epub 2022 Jun 8.
The death of a spouse is associated with maladaptive immune alterations; grief severity may exacerbate this link. We investigated whether high grief symptoms were associated with an amplified inflammatory response to subsequent stress among 111 recently bereaved older adults. Participants completed a standardized psychological stressor and underwent a blood draw before, 45 min after, and 2 hr after the stressor. Those experiencing high grief symptoms (i.e., scoring > 25 on the Inventory of Complicated Grief) experienced a 45% increase in interleukin-6 (IL-6; a proinflammatory cytokine) per hour, whereas those experiencing low grief symptoms demonstrated a 26% increase. In other words, high grief was related to a 19% increase in IL-6 per hour relative to low grief. The grief levels of recently bereaved people were associated with the rate of change in IL-6 following a subsequent stressor, above and beyond depressive symptoms. This is the first study to demonstrate that high grief symptoms promote inflammation following acute stress.
丧偶与免疫功能失调有关；悲伤的严重程度可能会加剧这种联系。我们调查了在 111 名最近丧偶的老年人中，是否强烈的悲伤症状与对随后压力的炎症反应增强有关。参与者完成了一项标准化的心理应激测试，并在应激测试前、45 分钟后和 2 小时后进行了血液采集。与低悲伤症状组（即复杂性悲伤量表得分>25 分）相比，高悲伤症状组（即复杂性悲伤量表得分>25 分）的白细胞介素-6（IL-6；一种促炎细胞因子）每小时增加 45%，而低悲伤症状组增加 26%。换句话说，与低悲伤相比，高悲伤每小时的 IL-6 增加了 19%。最近丧偶者的悲伤程度与随后的应激后 IL-6 的变化率有关，而与抑郁症状无关。这是第一项表明强烈的悲伤症状会促进急性应激后炎症的研究。
