Early adversity and cardiovascular stress response: Stress reactivity or sensitivity to context.

OBJECTIVE: The stress reactivity hypothesis (SRH) posits that stressful early environments contribute to exaggerated stress responses, which increase risk for later cardiovascular (CV) disease. However, recent studies have revealed conflicting associations. The current study examined whether the biological sensitivity to context theory (BSCT) or SRH is a more accurate description of associations between early stress and CV reactivity and recovery, and determine which framework best explains sleep outcomes. This is the first article to conceptually link these theories and empirically examine competing hypotheses. METHOD: Participants were 213 adults who participated in the Pittsburgh Cold Study 3. Early environment stress was assessed by four self-report measures consistent with operationalizations of the BSCT. Average heart rate and mean arterial pressure reactivity to the trier social stress test were assessed on two occasions, and sleep parameters were assessed using wrist-worn actigraphy over 7 days. RESULTS: Results generally did not support the SRH; little evidence that high-stress early environments were reliably associated with exaggerated CV reactivity or slower CV recovery, and little evidence that these CV stress responses were consistently associated with poor sleep. However, there was some support for the BSCT; both high-stress and low-stress early environments were associated with exaggerated CV reactivity, the combination of high-stress and high CV reactivity was associated with poor sleep, and the combination of low-stress and high CV reactivity was associated with better sleep. CONCLUSIONS: Associations proposed by the BSCT persist into adulthood and may help explain associations with poor health outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Applying minimally invasive biomarkers of chronic stress across complex ecological contexts.

Chronic stress is both theoretically and methodologically challenging to operationalize through biomarkers. Yet minimally invasive, field-friendly biomarkers of chronic stress are valuable in research linking biology and culture, seeking to understand differential patterns of human development across ecological contexts, and exploring the evolution of human sociality. For human biologists, a central question in measurement and interpretation of biomarkers is how stress-responsive physiological systems are regulated across diverse human ecologies. This article aims to describe a conditional toolkit for human biologists interested in the study of chronic stress, highlighting a mix of longstanding and novel biomarkers, with special focus on hair/fingernail cortisol, latent herpesvirus antibodies, allostatic load indices, and serial/ambulatory data collection approaches. Future trends in chronic stress biomarker research, including epigenetic approaches, are briefly considered. This overview considers: (1) challenges in separating a distinctly psychosocial dimension of chronic stress from adversity more broadly; (2) essential characteristics of human ecology that shape interpretation; (3) retrospective vs. longitudinal sampling; (4) the role of age, developmental effects, and local biologies; (5) different timescales of chronicity; and (6) the role of culture.

Momentary Associations of Osteoarthritis Pain and Affect: Depression as Moderator.

OBJECTIVES: This research examined main and moderating effects of global depressive symptoms upon in-the-moment associations of pain and affect among individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Effects of depression on short-term change in pain and affect were also examined. METHOD: Older adults with physician-confirmed OA (N = 325) completed a baseline interview tapping global depressive symptoms, followed by an experience sampling protocol that captured momentary pain and affect 4 times daily for 7 days. Multilevel models controlling demographics and health conditions examined main and moderating effects of depression on momentary associations of pain with positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Similar methods addressed short-term change in pain and affect. Auxiliary analyses explored broad associations of depressive symptoms with person-level averages and variability in pain and affect. RESULTS: Global depression predicted current pain, PA, and NA, as well as change in pain and affect over a 3- to 8-h period. Furthermore, both in the moment and over short periods, the association of pain and NA was stronger among persons higher in depressive symptoms. No moderating effect for the PA-pain association was found. Depressive symptoms were also associated with variability in pain and affect, particularly NA. DISCUSSION: Results confirm previous work on the relation of chronic pain with both global depressive symptoms and short-term affect. This research further demonstrates a unique moderating role of depression on the association of momentary pain with NA and suggests that the causal path may be stronger from pain to affect than vice versa.

Momentary Reports of Fatigue Predict Physical Activity Level: Wrist, Waist, and Combined Accelerometry.

Objective: Fatigue is commonly reported by persons with osteoarthritis (OA) and predicts worse functioning and decreased activity. The current research used a combination of wrist and waist accelerometry along with experience sampling methodology to examine the relationship between reports of fatigue and subsequent physical activity among older adults with knee OA. Method: Two hundred one participants completed an interview followed by a 1-week period during which their activity was monitored and they reported symptoms of pain and fatigue. Multilevel models examined within-subjects versus between-subjects patterns of symptoms and their association with physical activity. Results: Fatigue was the most consistent predictor of lowered physical activity (ß = -20.83, p < .001). Although wrist-worn actigraphs produced higher averaged activity counts than did waist actigraphs (t = 34.68, p < .001), multilevel models showed consistent results regardless of placement. Discussion: Fatigue was a consistent predictor of lowered activity regardless of actigraph location.

Global Versus Momentary Osteoarthritis Pain and Emotional Distress: Emotional Intelligence as Moderator.

Background: Pain and emotional well-being are complexly associated both globally and in the moment. Emotional regulation strategies may contribute to that complexity by shaping the pain-well-being association. Purpose: Using emotional intelligence (EI) as an integrative conceptual framework, this study probed the role of emotional regulation in the associations of osteoarthritis pain with emotional well-being in varying time frames. Perceived attention to, clarity, and regulation of emotions were examined as predictors of well-being, and as moderators of the well-being-pain association, at global and momentary (within-day) levels. Methods: In a microlongitudinal study, 218 older adults with physician-diagnosed knee osteoarthritis self-reported global pain, depressive symptoms, and EI (mood attention, clarity, and repair). Momentary pain and positive and negative affect were then assessed four times daily for 7 days. EI subscales were examined as moderators of the pain-well-being association at global and momentary levels, controlling demographics and general health. Results: Global and momentary pain were positively associated with mood clarity and negatively with attention, but not with repair. Clarity and repair negatively predicted depression, and buffered effects of pain on depression. Momentary negative affect was negatively predicted by mood clarity and repair; again, clarity and mood repair buffered effects of momentary pain on negative affect. Only mood repair predicted positive affect, with no interactions emerging. Conclusions: Attention to mood states exacerbates the experience of pain in both short and long terms. In contrast, both mood clarity and ability to repair moods appear important to both momentary and longer-term emotional well-being.

Body Image Models among Low-income African American Mothers and Daughters in the Southeast United States.

Obesity among low-income African American women has been studied using the concepts of both satisfaction and acceptance. The satisfaction frame suggests greater satisfaction with their bodies than their white counterparts, irrespective of size. The acceptance frame suggests that alternative aesthetics serve as resistance against intersectional marginalization. Yet, while these women accept their body size in defiance of thinness ideals, they may not be satisfied. We describe cultural models of body image among mothers and daughters in Alabama. We found that respectability, material consumption, and parental support were important factors determining positive body image, exceeding descriptions of physical features. We further found that those expressing greater body dissatisfaction emphasized respectability, whereas those with less dissatisfaction assigned importance to consumerism and physical form. These findings suggest divergences between biomedical messaging and lived experience. They also challenge uncritical or universalist applications of these frames when interpreting African American women's perceptions of their own bodies.

Racial/ethnic differences in sleep quality among older adults with osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVE: To examine racial/ethnic differences in sleep quality and the pain-sleep association among older adults with osteoarthritis of the knee. DESIGN: Baseline interview followed by a 7-day microlongitudinal study using accelerometry and self-reports. SETTING: Participants were community residents in western Alabama and Long Island, NY. PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-six African Americans (AAs) and 128 non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) with physician-diagnosed knee osteoarthritis, recruited from a variety of clinical and community settings. MEASUREMENTS: Self-reports yielded demographics, body mass index, physical health problems, and depressive symptoms. Sleep quality was measured for 3 to 7 nights using wrist-worn accelerometers; pain was self-reported daily over the same period. RESULTS: With demographics and health controlled, AAs displayed poorer sleep efficiency, greater time awake after sleep onset and sleep fragmentation, and marginally more awakenings during the night, but no differences in total sleep time. AAs also showed greater night-to-night variability in number of awakenings and sleep fragmentation, and marginally greater variability in total sleep time and sleep efficiency. Sleep quality was not associated with pain either the day before sleep or the day after. Average daily pain interacted with race, whereas AAs displayed no effect of pain on sleep efficiency, NHWs exhibited better sleep efficiency at higher levels of average pain. CONCLUSIONS: These data corroborate previous studies documenting poorer sleep among AAs vs NHWs. The findings of greater night-to-night variability in sleep among AAs, as well as a negative association of pain with sleep quality among NHWs, are unique. Further study is needed to elucidate these findings.

Guadalupan Devotion as a Moderator of Psychosocial Stress among Mexican Immigrants in the Rural Southern United States.

This study considers how shared devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe among Mexican immigrants in rural Mississippi buffers the effects of immigration stress. Rural destinations lacking social services can quickly compound the already stressful experience of immigration. Guadalupe devotion provides a way of coping with the daily life stressors of immigration. We test the hypothesis that high consonance in the cultural model of Guadalupan devotion will moderate the adverse health effects of immigration stress. Results indicate that as exposure to immigration stressors increased, well-being decreased among those with low consonance, while the effect was eliminated in those with high consonance. Findings demonstrate the advantage of expanding research on coping to incorporate complex models that consider religious and secular elements and also illustrate how a master symbol, characterized as a cultural model of coping with limited local distribution, yields health effects dissimilar to the mediation normally associated with consonance.

Tattooing to "Toughen up": Tattoo experience and secretory immunoglobulin A.

OBJECTIVES: A costly signaling model suggests tattooing inoculates the immune system to heightened vigilance against stressors associated with soft tissue damage. We sought to investigate this "inoculation hypothesis" of tattooing as a costly honest signal of fitness. We hypothesized that the immune system habituates to the tattooing stressor in repeatedly tattooed individuals and that immune response to the stress of the tattooing process would correlate with lifetime tattoo experience. METHODS: Participants were 24 women and 5 men (aged 18-47). We measured immune function using secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) and cortisol (sCORT) in saliva collected before and after tattoo sessions. We measured tattoo experience as a sum of number of tattoos, lifetime hours tattooed, years since first tattoo, percent of body covered, and number of tattoo sessions. We predicted an inverse relationship between SIgA and sCORT and less SIgA immunosuppression among those with more tattoo experience. We used hierarchical multiple regression to test for a main effect of tattoo experience on post-tattoo SIgA, controlling for pretest SIgA, tattoo session duration, body mass, and the interaction between tattoo experience and test session duration. RESULTS: The regression model was significant (P = 0.006) with a large effect size (r(2) = 0.711) and significant and positive main (P = 0.03) and interaction effects (P = 0.014). CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that the body habituates over time to the tattooing stressor. It is possible that individuals with healthy immune systems heal faster, making them more likely to get multiple tattoos. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:603-609, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Household-level predictors of maternal mental health and systemic inflammation among infants in Mwanza, Tanzania.

OBJECTIVES: Household conditions and culturally/socially variable childcare practices influence priming of the inflammatory response during infancy. Maternal mental health may partially mediate that effect. Among mother-infant dyads in Mwanza, Tanzania, we hypothesized that poorer maternal mental health would be associated with adverse household ecology, lower social capital, and greater inflammation among infants under the age of one; and that mental health would mediate any effects of household ecology/social capital on inflammation. METHODS: We collected dried blood spots from mother-infant dyads (N = 88) at health centers near Mwanza, Tanzania. To assess household ecology and social capital, we conducted interviews with mothers using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, the MacArthur Subjective Social Status Scale, and a household wealth inventory. We employed the Hopkins Symptom Checklist to assess maternal mental health. A high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) assay was used to quantify inflammation. RESULTS: Severe food insecurity (OR: 5.16), lower subjective social status (r = -0.32), and lower household wealth (r = -0.26) were associated with high symptoms of maternal depression. Lower household wealth (r = -0.21) and severe food insecurity (OR: 2.52) were associated with high anxiety. High depression symptoms (OR: 2.56) and severe food insecurity (OR: 2.77) each were associated with greater-than-median infant CRP. However, mediation was not supported. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal mental health should be considered alongside nutritional status, pathogen exposure, and education as a potential driver of very early innate immune system development. Proximal mechanisms warrant further investigation. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:461-470, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Beyond catecholamines: Measuring autonomic responses to psychosocial context.

Despite longstanding interest among human biologists in autonomic responses to socioecological context or culture change, the adoption of autonomic measures has been limited by methodological challenges. Catecholamine secretion is the most direct measure, but not all study designs are amenable to urinary sampling, and blood pressure lacks specificity to the parasympathetic or sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. This article reviews three alternative approaches for measuring autonomic responses: salivary α-amylase as a nonspecific autonomic marker, respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a specific parasympathetic marker, and the pre-ejection period as a specific sympathetic marker. Study design considerations are discussed in detail, including ambulatory sampling protocols that permit the evaluation of autonomic responses to everyday life. Researchers interested in how culture and social experience "get under the skin," as well as those concerned with the evolution of social engagement, can benefit from these well-validated biomarkers that are nevertheless relatively novel in human biology. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:309-317, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Does moderate iron deficiency protect against childhood illness? A test of the optimal iron hypothesis in Tanzania.

OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that moderate iron deficiency among children is associated with lower likelihood of infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We use data from a population representative cross sectional study of 1164 Tanzanian children aged 6-59 months from the Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey. Respondents' iron levels were assessed through serum transferrin receptor (sTfR) and anemia was assessed using hemoglobin. C-reactive protein (CRP) was used as a marker of infection. RESULTS: Nearly 25% of the children were categorized as normal (iron replete, non-anemic); 45% were IDE (low iron, non-anemic), 24% were classified as IDA (low iron, anemic), and 69 children (5.9%) were anemic but had no evidence of iron deficiency. IDE was not associated with a lower likelihood of elevated CRP compared to iron replete, non-anemic children; 45% of normal children had elevated CRP compared to 51% of IDE children (P = 0.10). IDA, by contrast, was associated with a higher likelihood of elevated CRP (68%, P < 0.001). These results were unchanged when child, maternal, and household controls were added to a logistic regression model. DISCUSSION: Our results do not support the optimal iron hypothesis as conventionally formulated. The fact that we did not find an effect where some other studies have may be due to differences in study design, sample (e.g., age), or the baseline pathogenic ecology. Alternatively, it may be more fruitful to investigate iron regulation as an allostatic system that responds to infections adaptively, rather than to expect an optimal pre-infection value.

The signs of stress: embodiments of biosocial stress among type 2 diabetic women in New Delhi, India.

Biocultural models of health and illness are increasingly used to trace how social pathways shape biological outcomes. Yet, data on the interactions between social and biological aspects of health are lacking in low- and middle-income regions, where two-thirds of all type 2 diabetes cases occur. This study explored health, social roles, and biological correlates among a group of 280 type 2 diabetic and non-diabetic women (n = 184 diabetic) in New Delhi, India, between 2009 and 2011. Using a biocultural framework, we developed and tested a series of hypotheses about the relationships that might exist between diabetes, psychological distress, social role fulfillment, and biological markers measuring blood sugar control, generalized inflammation, and immune stress. Although blood glucose and glycated hemoglobin levels indicated that women's diabetes was generally poorly controlled, they lacked the elevated inflammation, immune stress, and mental ill health that often accompany uncontrolled blood sugar. Qualitative work on explanatory models of diabetes and gendered models of appropriate behavior demonstrated that despite living with poorly controlled diabetes, women maintain participation in culturally valued roles involving the care of others. We suggest that behavioral congruence with these gendered roles may buffer diabetic women's mental health and perhaps even their long-term physical health, while simultaneously posing challenges for their diabetes self-care. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the experience of type 2 diabetes in India from an integrated biocultural perspective.

Testing hypothesized predictors of immune activation in Tanzanian infants and children: community, household, caretaker, and child effects.

OBJECTIVES: There is increasing interest in the epidemiology of immune activation among young children because of the links with mortality and growth. We hypothesized that infant and child inflammation, as measured by elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), would be associated with household assets, household size, measures of sanitation, and food insecurity. We also hypothesized that children in the poorest households and with elevated CRP would show evidence of growth faltering. METHODS: A nationally representative cross-sectional study of Tanzania children 6-59 months of age. Survey data, anthropometrics, and dried blood spots were available for 1,387 children. Measures of elevated CRP (CRP ≥ 1.1 mg/l) were used to assess inflammation. RESULTS: Fifty-four percent of the sample had CRP ≥ 1.1 mg/l. In bivariate analyses, several measures of sanitation were associated with elevated CRP but in multiple regression models only age, sex, literacy, maternal reports of illness, household size, and living in the wealthiest households predicted CRP. There were no associations between elevated CRP and any measure of child growth. CONCLUSIONS: Among children in Tanzania, a single elevated CRP does not predict poor growth functioning. Elevated CRP is associated with individual, caretaker, household, and community-level variables. Future work should strive to measure local biologies in more nuanced ways.

Explanatory models of female pubertal timing: discordances between cultural models of maturation and the recollection and interpretation of personal developmental experiences.

Given the ambiguity surrounding the source of the continuing trend toward earlier menarche observed in Westernized nations, several competing explanatory models have emerged regarding variation in pubertal timing. While a biomedical model proposes that predominantly constitutional characteristics shape the maturation timetable, an alternative framework derived from Life History Theory (LHT) evolutionary principles emphasizes the influence of psychosocial factors on development. Working with a sample of women 19-25 years of age (N = 103) drawn from two Southeastern U.S. colleges, we combined cultural consensus analysis with retrospective self-report regarding childhood stress and menarcheal timing to investigate whether reported developmental experiences align with cultural models regarding factors that should drive pubertal timing. Results suggest a robust cultural model consistent with a biomedical framework concentrating principally on constitutional characteristics. However, participants' personal developmental recollections support an association between higher childhood stress and earlier menarche. These findings support LHT predictions that early reproductive maturation is an evolutionary adaptive response to chronic childhood stress as well as clarify the extent to which cultural models of factors contributing to puberty concord with developmental experiences.

Sex differences in child nutritional and immunological status 5-9 years post contact in fringe highland Papua New Guinea.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines sex differences in vulnerability among children experiencing rapid culture change that may reflect distinct microecologies driven by differential parental investment and/or sex-specific life history strategies. Apparent female growth canalization may be a life history strategy favoring growth over maintenance but also may reflect sex-differentiated selection for resilience based on unequal treatment during early life. METHODS: Stature, weight, and serum measures of C-reactive protein (CRP, an inflammation marker) and Epstein-Barr Virus antibodies (EBV, a humoral immune response marker) were collected longitudinally among children/adolescents ages 5-20 years (N = 65), 5-9 years after sustained contact in a fringe highland hunter-horticulturalist group from the Schrader Range in Papua New Guinea exhibiting male preference and sex-biased survival. It was hypothesized that girls would exhibit canalization, with better nutritional status than boys; lower maintenance investment would yield lower female immune activation; and because of differential survivorship, females would appear increasingly canalized as early conditions for girls worsened relative to boys. RESULTS: Girls had greater arm circumference z-scores than boys, less frequent stunting, and lower CRP despite high pathogen load. Average nutritional status for girls improved over time as the sex ratio became increasingly male biased and the condition of female infants reportedly worsened. CONCLUSIONS: Both canalization and survivorship effects were found. Although a life history perspective on female canalization can help explain developmental outcomes in populations undergoing rapid culture change amid adversity, possible sex differences in the strength of survivorship effects that select for resiliency should not be ignored.

Methodological considerations in the use of salivary alpha-amylase as a stress marker in field research.

Salivary alpha-amylase recently has been identified as a stress-related biomarker for autonomic nervous system activity. This study addresses sample collection and handling considerations for field researchers. Saliva was collected by unstimulated passive drool from 14 adults and pooled. Incubation of pooled saliva at 22 or 37 degrees C for 21 days did not diminish amylase activity. However, sodium azide added at concentrations

Culture and the socialization of child cardiovascular regulation at school entry in the US.

The measurement of cardiovascular functioning targets an important bridge between social conditions and differential well-being. Nevertheless, the biocultural, psychosocial processes that link human ecology to cardiovascular function in children remain inadequately characterized. Childrearing practices shaped by parents' cultural beliefs should moderate children's affective responses to daily experience, and hence their psychophysiology. The present study concerns interactions among family ecology, the normative social challenge of entry into kindergarten, and parasympathetic (vagal) cardiac regulation in US middle-class children (N = 30). Although parents believed children must be protected from overscheduling to reduce stress and improve socio-emotional adaptation, maternal rather than child schedules predicted parasympathetic regulation during a nonthreatening social engagement task following school entry. Children of busier married mothers, but less busy single mothers, showed the context-appropriate pattern of parasympathetic regulation, low respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). These findings are expected if: maternal and family functioning, rather than the scheduling of the child's daily life, principally drive young children's cardiovascular responsiveness to a normative challenge; and busy schedules represent high family functioning with married mothers, but not under single-parent conditions wherein adult staffing is uniquely constrained. Family ecology is shaped by culture, and in turn shapes the development of children's cardiovascular responses. Appropriately fine-grained analysis of daily experience can illustrate how culturally driven parenting practices may have unintended consequences for child biological outcomes that vary by family structure.

Return to school accompanied by changing associations between family ecology and cortisol.

This study examines everyday family life as a social regulator of child adrenocortical activity during the normative challenge of return to school. If positive family function facilitates child adaptation, we expected that mother-child relationships following school entry would predict individual differences in evening cortisol, a context-sensitive marker for the response to concurrent demands. Among 28 children followed longitudinally, late in pre-kindergarten those living with single and/or employed mothers had higher evening cortisol. Yet early during the following school year, children with poorer mother-child relationships had higher evening cortisol. Cortisol awakening response, a comparatively stable marker of anticipated demands, was higher with maternal employment, single parents, and busier child schedules before school re-entry, and with maternal employment afterwards. We argue for a layered ecological approach to social regulation, recognizing that family structure, family functioning, and proximal features of everyday life within the family moderate child adrenocortical activity differently across contexts.