Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2023 Oct 9;78(10):1707-1716. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbad087.
Social stress has been shown to affect immune functioning. Past research has found that chronic social stress and latent viral infections accelerate immune aging, leading to chronic disease morbidity and mortality. Chronic stress may also reactivate latent viral infections, like cytomegalovirus (CMV), accelerating the aging of the immune system.
Utilizing panel survey data from 8,995 U.S. adults aged 56 or older from the Health and Retirement Study, this study investigates whether chronic stress interacts with CMV positivity to drive aging of the immune system, multimorbidity, and mortality.
Results of moderated mediation analysis indicate that the effect of CMV positivity on morbidity and mortality as mediated by immune aging indicators is amplified by chronic stress.
These findings suggest that immune aging is a biological pathway underlying the stress process and help explain past findings in the literature on stress and health.
社会压力已被证明会影响免疫功能。过去的研究发现,慢性社会压力和潜伏性病毒感染会加速免疫衰老,导致慢性病发病率和死亡率上升。慢性压力也可能使潜伏性病毒感染(如巨细胞病毒(CMV))重新激活,从而加速免疫系统的衰老。
本研究利用来自美国健康与退休研究的 8995 名 56 岁或以上成年人的面板调查数据,调查慢性压力是否与 CMV 阳性相互作用,从而驱动免疫系统衰老、多种疾病和死亡率。
中介调节分析的结果表明,CMV 阳性对发病率和死亡率的影响,通过免疫衰老指标的中介作用被慢性压力放大。
这些发现表明,免疫衰老是压力过程的一个生物学途径,并有助于解释过去文献中关于压力和健康的研究结果。