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7.
6.
5.
4.
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2.
1.

connected to changes in body

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, November 30, 2004

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Researchers at UC San Francisco say they

have found the first direct evidence that severe
and chronic emotional stress can age
people biologically.
Everyone knows that stress is tough, and
prolonged stress can be even worse -- it can
disrupt the human immune system, increase
the risk of heart disease and take its toll on the

body in many other ways. Now the scientists think they know why: Stress, or the
perception of stress, can alter key genetic molecules in a cell.
In a controlled experiment involving mothers caring for chronically ill children, a team
from UCSF and other research centers found that mothers who perceived that they were
under persistent psychological stress aged by the equivalent of a full decade -- their cells
were damaged and even killed by their own perceptions of stress.
The scientists focused on key protein molecules in the body's cells called telomeres that
cap the ends of chromosomes and on an enzyme called telomerase that controls the length
of those telomeres.

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Every time cells divide normally, their telomeres shorten, and when the telomeres have
dwindled away completely, the cells die. The telomerase enzyme, in turn, can boost the
length of the telomeres and thus keep cells dividing indefinitely.
The gradual shortening of telomeres as cells divide serves as a kind of time-clock that

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measures the biological age of the body's cells.

Leaders of the research team are UCSF's Elizabeth Blackburn, a microbiologist who is
famed for her discoveries of telomere activity, and Elissa Epel, an assistant professor of

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"Everybody's trying to figure out what causes aging and premature aging, " Dennis
Novack, who studies emotion and health at Drexel University School of Medicine, told the
Washington Post. "We all know that stress seems to age people -- just look at the aging of
our presidents after four years."

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The new study "demonstrated that there is no such thing as a separation of mind and body
-- the very molecules in our bodies are responsive to our psychological environment,"
Novack said.
In their long-term experiment, Blackburn and Epel compared two groups: one made up of
39 mothers who had to care for their children suffering from such disorders as autism and
cerebral palsy, the other of 19 mothers who were caring for normal, healthy children.
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The mothers of the chronically ill children "were subjected to the kind of grinding,
day-to-day bad stress that can wear anyone down," Blackburn said in an interview, "and
the longer their stress continued, the more it appeared that they aged biologically."
Analysis of the telomeres on the chromosomes of their white blood cells showed that those
tiny proteins shortened measurably as the mothers felt the continued stress of caring for
their severely sick children, the scientists found. Some mothers with sick children,
however, did not report feeling stressed, and their telomeres did not shorten, the
scientists found.
Dr. Richard Cawthorn, a geneticist at the University of Utah, was responsible for
measuring the telomeres and the enzyme's activity in all the mothers.

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"We weren't at all sure of what we'd find," Blackburn said, "but we could let the numbers
speak to us, and they've given us a pretty tantalizing hint of the physical link between
long-term psychological stress and biological aging."

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Cawthorn's numbers showed that telomerase activity diminished most strikingly in the
mothers whose care for their severely ill children was unremitting for long periods of time
-- with the result that their telomeres shortened and their cells aged. Follow-up research
may also find that their susceptibility to diseases of the heart and immune
system increases.

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"The research so far gives us a dramatic example of the mind-body link in a basic,
fundamental way," Epel said.
One of the next areas Epel would like to research is how techniques designed to ease
long-term psychological stress affect the body's cells. Activities such as yoga, meditation or
behavioral therapy, she said, might increase telomerase activity and slow the rate of
telomere shortening.
"The findings emphasize the importance of managing life stress, to take it seriously if one
feels stressed, to give your body a break and make life changes that promote well-being,"
Epel said.

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