Is stress connected to long-term inflammation issues?

South Dakota State University assistant professor Dakota Witzel has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how daily stressors and emotional reactions contribute to long-term inflammation and other related health issues.

When a person experiences prolonged, elevated inflammation, it is a clear signal from the body that there is an underlying health issue at play. This is especially true in older adults (70 years and older) who have a more difficult time managing "chronic inflammation" than their younger counterparts. 

Dakota Witzel is an assistant professor in South Dakota State University's School of Education, Counseling and Human Development. She theorizes that daily stressors and a person's emotional reactions to daily stressors may be mechanisms that increase risk for prolonged inflammation and other associated health issues. While past research has identified how daily stress and stress processes are important factors that affect health, the linkage between stress and inflammation is poorly understood and understudied.

"Daily stressors and emotional reactions to daily stressors may increase our risk for prolonged inflammation and downstream health outcomes, like arthritis, for example," Witzel said. "How daily stressors relate to inflammation remains poorly understood, especially in older adulthood — when risk for prolonged inflammation is already increased."

In a new National Institutes of Health project, Witzel will study the relationship between daily stress, stress processes, stress reactions and long-term inflammation. Specifically, the goal of her research is to identify which aspects of daily stress processes are linked with heightened inflammatory indicators, or "biomarkers," in older adults.

Human beings can navigate their complex, changing world by adapting to different situations, some of which can challenging or even dangerous. They use their stress response systems to respond to these situations, which work by activating or changing dependent systems in our body. These systems provide short-term adaptations to threats, like increases in blood pressure or heat rate. These response systems also stimulate an inflammatory response with an increase of "inflammatory cytokines" into the blood.

Cytokines function as chemical messengers in the immune system, and specific cytokines, like inflammatory cytokines, are responsible for upregulating or reducing levels of inflammation in the body, often triggered from the stress response system. Witzel is particularly interested in a specific cytokine — macrophage migration inhibitory factor — that is theorized to be highly related to psychosocial stress and may represent more chronic stress patterning.

In the $148,000 NIH-backed grant, Witzel will utilize a data from a recent "Einstein Aging Study." A racially diverse sample of 70-plus year olds participated in the 14-day ecological assessment study in which blood was drawn before and after the cycle. This data will be utilized in Witzel’s modeling, which may provide insights into the linkage between stress and chronic inflammation. 

"Physical and emotional stress has a significant impact on health," said Matt Vukovich, associate dean for research for SDSU's College of Education and Human Sciences. "Once we better understand how stress, physiology, and health are interrelated, we will be able to design interventions that will improve health outcomes and subsequent healthy aging."

The results of this work may better inform how older adults deal with elevated and prolonged inflammation. Current interventions for managing or decreasing chronic inflammation include medication, exercise or change in diet but nothing related to daily stress, stress reactions or stress processes. Witzel's work may inform the need to consider stress for inflammation management and interventions.

"Findings from this study will provide critical information on what aspects of daily stress processes may be utilized as intervention targets for managing and decreasing prolonged inflammation," Witzel said. "It will also identify for whom these interventions should be different."

Witzel's two-year project is being funded under NIH's National Institute on Aging. Consultants on the grant include Jennifer Graham-Engeland, associate director of Pennsylvania State University's Center for Healthy Aging, and Christopher Engeland, professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State.