Chronic Stress and Risky Decision Making in Emerging Adults: University Students Versus Non-Student Peers

Chronic Stress, Hair Cortisol, and Risky Decision-Making Processes in Young Adults

Having your cake and eating it too: A habit of comfort food may link chronic social stress exposure and acute stress-induced cortisol hyporesponsiveness

WE READ WITH GREAT INTEREST THE TWO COMMENTARIES BY DRS. YOUNG AND HORNE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WELL ESTABLISHED ASSOCIATION between short sleep and obesity.1,2 Both papers are methodic with well-thought arguments on complex issues such as association vs. causality, the importance of effect size from an individual vs. public health perspective and applicability of short-term studies to long-term problems. In this exchange of ideas, there is an issue that was missed. Who among obese individuals report short sleep? What are their clinical profiles and characteristics? Is the self-reported short sleep duration a result of voluntary chronic sleep restriction? In February 2008, we published a study in a large population sample of 1,300 men and women addressing these questions.3 Consistent with most previous reports, obese individuals reported short sleep duration. In addition, they reported a higher incidence of subjective sleep disturbances (47.4% vs. 25.5%, P < 0.01) and scored higher for chronic emotional stress than nonobese subjects. Notably, self-reported sleep duration did not differ between obese and nonobese individuals without subjective sleep disturbances, while obese with sleep complaints scored higher in chronic emotional stress compared to obese without sleep complaints. The shortest sleep duration was reported by the obese insomniacs (5.9 h), followed by obese with EDS (6.3 h) or sleep difficulty (6.6 h). The effect of chronic emotional stress was stronger than that of the BMI on the reported sleep duration, with a synergistic joint effect. We concluded that short sleep duration is reported by obese individuals who complain of their sleep and are chronically stressed. Interestingly, in this study and two previous ones4,5 there was no association between objective sleep duration and BMI, suggesting that it is an individual's perception of sleep duration rather than actual sleep loss that correlates with obesity. Longitudinal data from the Alameda County Health and Living Study indicated that this perception is also influenced by social stressors such as socioeconomic and minority status.6 In a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released in May 2008, Schoenborn and Adams provided a national perspective on the association between sleep duration and selected health risk behaviors using data from the 2004–2006 National Health Interview Survey.7 The findings suggested that U.S. adults who usually sleep less than six hours were more likely than adults who slept 7 to 8 hours to engage in certain health risk behaviors (i.e., cigarette smoking, consuming five or more alcoholic drinks per day, and not engaging in physical activity on leisure-time). This emerging literature suggests that obese individuals who report short sleep are psychosocially stressed and unhappy with the quality of their sleep, and engage in unhealthy behaviors. Although these studies, as with most previous ones, do not provide any causal direction, based on existing empirical and scientific evidence, it is reasonable to suggest that chronic stress may lead to the increased consumption of palatable (or “comfort”) food8 or that reduced physical activity may lead to excess weight. Furthermore, behaviors such as smoking and alcohol consumption are widely used practices to reduce stress and to improve—albeit unsuccessfully—sleep, whereas their discontinuation, e.g., of smoking, is associated with increased food intake and significant weight gain. Thus, from a practical standpoint it appears that the self-reported short sleep duration is a marker of subjective sleep disturbances and their associated chronic psychosocial stress and unhealthy wake time behaviors. Sleeping better, reducing or coping with chronic stress more effectively, and promoting healthier behaviors appear to be very important for a significant percentage (almost 50%) of obese individuals in the general population of the U.S. Simply recommending to poor sleepers to lengthen their sleep by 1 or 2 hours may be countertherapeutic.

This study explored the relatively neglected role of chronic stress in major depression, examining the independent contributions of co-occurring chronic and acute stress to depression, whether chronic stress predicts acute life events, and whether the two types of stress interact such that greater chronic stress confers greater sensitivity-or resistance-to the depressive effects of acute stressors. From a sample of 816 community women, those who had a major depression onset in the past 9 months and those without major depressive episodes (MDE) onset and with no history of current or recent dysthymic disorder were compared on interview-based measures of antecedent acute and chronic stress. Chronic stress interviews rated objective stress in multiple everyday role domains, and acute stress was evaluated with contextual threat interviews. MDE onset was significantly associated with both chronic and acute stress; chronic stress was also associated with the occurrence of acute events, and there was a trend suggesting that increased acute stress is more strongly associated with depression in those with high versus low chronic stress. Results suggest the importance of including assessment of chronic stress in fully understanding the extent and mechanisms of stress-depression relationships.

Chronic stress modulates neural and cardiovascular responses during reversal learning

Cellular response to chronic psychosocial stress: Ten-year longitudinal changes in telomere length in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Purpose: Impacts of long term, chronic stress cause concern among farm operators, workers, and their family members. The team involved with this work has built partnerships and program collaborations that connect the issue of chronic farm stress with high rates of workplace injury and occupational health problems common in the agricultural industry. Acute and chronic stress contribute often to distraction while performing work activity and feelings of being overwhelmed, and they complicate a farm operator’s or employee’s ability to make optimal operational and financial decisions. Our farm stress educational and technical support programs have focused on the biology and physiology of chronic stress, stress management practices and behaviors, communication, and taking control of one’s financial future. Methods: A team of approximately 30 educators, researchers, and partner personnel created a comprehensive web-based resource center focused on interventions connected to chronic farm stress, suicide prevention, communication, and financial tools that help guide farmers and ranchers through difficult financial conditions and decisions. These efforts have also focused on teaching farmers, ranchers, agricultural service providers, and other allied community professionals about linkages between chronic stress, high injury rates (resulting from fatigue, distraction, and error rates), and disease (cardiovascular, type 2 diabetes, infection, etc.). Findings: The work is ongoing and has been led by a cross-disciplinary team with member expertise including agricultural health and safety, financial management, farm family relationships, program evaluation, and human health and well-being. An intervention evaluation “question bank” has been created that contains specific program evaluation questions developed for 16 different program curricula/series including those developed by the team or by other partner organizations. Translation to practical application by agricultural industry: It is our goal that this work on prevention and intervention on farm and ranch stress will impact on agricultural safety and health for farmers, farm workers, and family members. The program evaluation information will prove useful as participants and readers consider similar efforts within their respective organizations, states, companies, etc., and as they develop appropriate anticipated outcomes and impacts and associated evaluation tools.

Adverse effect of combination of chronic psychosocial stress and high fat diet on hippocampus-dependent memory in rats

Chronic psychological stress can result in physiological and mental health risks via the activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, sympathoadrenal activity and emotion-focused coping strategies. The impact of different stress loads on cardiometabolic risk is poorly understood. This post hoc analysis of a randomized pilot study was conducted on 61 participants (18–65 years of age) with perceived chronic stress. The Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ30), Psychological Neurological Questionnaire (PNF), anthropometric, clinical and blood parameters were assessed. Subjects were assigned to ‘high stress’ (HS; PSQ30 score: 0.573 ± 0.057) and ‘very high stress’ (VHS; PSQ30 score: 0.771 ± 0.069) groups based on the PSQ30. Morning salivary cortisol and CRP were elevated in both groups. Visceral adiposity, elevated blood pressure and metabolic syndrome were significantly more frequent in the HS group vs. the VHS group. The fatty liver index (FLI) was higher (p = 0.045), while the PNF score was lower (p < 0.001) in the HS group. The HS group was comprised of more smokers (p = 0.016). Energy intake and physical activity levels were similar in both groups. Thus, high chronic stress was related to visceral adiposity, FLI, elevated blood pressure and metabolic syndrome in the HS group, while very high chronic stress was associated with psychological–neurological symptoms and a lower cardiometabolic risk in the VHS group, probably due to different coping strategies.

Anthropogenic habitat fragmentation has well-established deleterious effects on populations and communities of native vertebrates, but the mechanisms underlying population decline under fragmentation remain poorly understood. Most studies of vertebrates in anthropogenically-fragmented habitats have focused on population density, demographics or fecundity. Relatively little attention has been given to indices of health status, body condition or physiological stress. In this study, 30 populations of a small marsupial, the agile antechinus (Antechinus agilis), living in anthropogenically-fragmented forest patches were sampled in two years (2007 and 2008). Immediately after sampling in each fragment, a population in a matched control site in similar, but unfragmented forest (a 'pseudofragment') was sampled. Indices of population density (relative abundance), estimated fat reserves (mass-size residuals), health status (erythrocyte variables), parasite load (simplified ectoparasite counts and eosinophil percentages) and chronic physiological stress (total and differential immune cell counts) were examined. Relative abundances were lower and parasite load indices higher in fragmented than continuous forest. Fragment populations displayed indications of regenerative anaemia, which is related to poor health status and potentially caused by chronic stress, frequent blood loss or heavy parasite loads. Estimated fat reserves were higher in fragment than continuous forest populations. Nonetheless, differential leukocyte counts suggested that chronic physiological stress was greater (i.e. greater neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratios) (N:L) in populations in fragments. Anthropogenic fragmentation effects are not often distinguished in the ecological literature from those of co-occurring processes, such as habitat loss and degradation. To investigate the effects of these processes, environmental factors were examined that were thought to have a potential influence on agile antechinus (e.g. fragment patch core area, proportion of edge habitat, isolation, woody debris abundance, shrub density etc). Relative abundance of agile antechinus was positively correlated with forest patch core area and native tree-cover within a 0.5 km radius of a study site. Estimated fat reserves, particularly in males, were greater in populations in fragments with a smaller core area, but statistical modelling indicated that the effect was an indirect one: males had greater estimated fat reserves where the abundance of conspecifics was lower, suggesting that this metric was responding to intraspecific competition and per capita food availability. Health status, indexed by erythrocyte indicators of regenerative anaemia,was positively associated with greater microhabitat heterogeneity, and abundance of shrubs, logs and native trees other than Eucalyptus species. Female abundances were lower in edge habitat (&lt; 60 m from edge) than in fragment interiors (&gt; 80 m from edge), and females had higher chronic stress indicators (N:L) where fragments were more highly dissected by edge habitat. Although parasite load indices and male N:L were higher in fragment than continuous forest sites, the environmental factors responsible were not identified. The study has demonstrated that anthropogenic habitat fragmentation, loss and degradation can have broadly negative effects on a native vertebrate, not only on its population density, but also in terms of health status and chronic physiological stress. This is a serious concern from a conservation management perspective, because chronic stress has pronounced fitness-reducing effects in vertebrates, including reduced reproductive investment, fecundity and survivorship.

Human risk taking is characterized by a large amount of individual heterogeneity. In this study, we applied resting-state electroencephalography, which captures stable individual differences in neural activity, before subjects performed a risk-taking task. Using a source-localization technique, we found that the baseline cortical activity in the right prefrontal cortex predicts individual risk-taking behavior. Individuals with higher baseline cortical activity in this brain area display more risk aversion than do other individuals. This finding demonstrates that neural characteristics that are stable over time can predict a highly complex behavior such as risk-taking behavior and furthermore suggests that hypoactivity in the right prefrontal cortex might serve as a dispositional indicator of lower regulatory abilities, which is expressed in greater risk-taking behavior.

Experiencing chronic stress early in life is associated with later health disparities, and poverty may be a significant stressor for both mothers and children. With a sample of primarily Black and White mothers (N=75) and toddlers (N=71) living in poverty in the United States, we examined the direct relations between sociodemographic conditions of poverty and chronic physiological stress. Mothers completed questionnaires on sociodemographics, including mother/toddler race, mother's education, father's education, poverty level, economic hardship, marital status, unemployment status, and toddler sex. Physiological chronic stress was measured by assaying the cortisol content of 4cm samples of hair cut from the posterior vertex of mothers and toddlers (20-24 months of age) to represent 4 months of stress. Mothers' and toddlers' chronic stress was significantly, moderately, and positively associated. Toddlers had a trending relationship of moderately higher chronic stress if they were Black compared to not Black. Mothers had significantly, moderately higher chronic stress if they were Black or had a Black toddler (compared to not Black), not married (compared to married), or were working (compared to not working). The findings suggest that these mothers, simultaneously navigating poverty and parenting a toddler, need resources to reduce chronic stress.

Chronic stress, salivary cortisol, and α-amylase in children with asthma and healthy children

Stress is a major problem among students, threatening their health and well-being. The aim of the research is to analyze the sources of stress in students and to investigate whether there are gender differences and differences between university and non-university students in stress, coping styles, mental symptoms and well-being. A second aim is to know the relevance of age, education, stress, coping styles, self-esteem and social support on mental symptoms, psychological well-being and life satisfaction of boys and girls. The study was cross-sectional. The sample consisted of 1,426 students between the ages of 16 and 26. The results of the ANOVAs showed that although there were some gender differences, being a university student or not explained more variance than gender. University students had more chronic stress than non-university students. However, they were more satisfied with their studies, had healthier coping styles, fewer mental symptoms, and greater well-being. For both genders, the main predictor of more mental symptoms was a higher emotional coping style. This was followed by lower self-esteem, a higher number of stressful life events, and higher chronic stress. Higher study dissatisfaction was associated with lower psychological well-being and lower life satisfaction. Higher chronic stress was associated with lower life satisfaction. It is concluded that stress and coping styles are relevant to students' mental health. The results of this study are relevant to the design of policies, strategies, and programs to improve students' mental health and well-being.

Effects of acute stress on risky decision-making are related to neuroticism: An fMRI study of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task