Stress may raise cholesterol in some (Reuters News reprint)
- From: "Blocked" <blockedthedoc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Nov 2005 09:22:53 -0800
Stress may raise cholesterol in some
By Amy Norton 11/29/05 Reuter News reprint
For some people, the body's reaction to stress may raise the odds of
developing high cholesterol, the results of a new study suggest.
Researchers in the UK found that healthy middle-age adults whose
cholesterol rose in response to a stressful task were more likely than
their peers without this increase to have high cholesterol several
years later.
It's been known that blood cholesterol can show a short-lived rise in
response to stress, study co-author Dr. Andrew Steptoe told Reuters
Health. The new findings, he said, suggest that these transient
increases may predict long-term elevations in cholesterol.
A number of studies have linked chronic stress to a higher risk of
heart disease, and it's possible that stress-related changes in
cholesterol contribute to this, according to Steptoe, who is based at
University College London.
Steptoe and colleague Lena Brydon report the findings in the journal
Health Psychology.
To see if stress-related spikes in cholesterol can have long-range
effects, the researchers followed 199 middle-aged adults over 3 years.
At the start of the study, participants performed two moderately
stressful computer-based tasks; blood samples were taken before and
after the tests to measure any changes in cholesterol levels. The men
and women were then divided into three groups based on the extent of
their cholesterol response.
Three years later, participants had their blood cholesterol measured
again. Those in the group with the greatest cholesterol response to
stress were the most likely to have high cholesterol.
Overall, 56 percent had a total cholesterol level that surpassed the
cutoff for diagnosing high cholesterol, compared with only 16 percent
of the group whose cholesterol levels had been least affected by
stress.
Even when the researchers weighed other factors such as age, body
weight and smoking, the group with the highest stress response was 13
times more likely than the group with the lowest response to have high
cholesterol 3 years later.
They were also four times more likely to have high levels of LDL
cholesterol, the "bad" form that contributes to artery-clogging
plaques.
The findings suggest that chronic stress can contribute to high
cholesterol in some people, though the reason is unclear, according to
Steptoe and Brydon.
One possibility, they note, is that changes in metabolism in response
to stress ultimately cause the liver to boost production of LDL
particles. There is also evidence that stress can temporarily limit the
body's clearance of cholesterol from the blood.
According to Steptoe, it's possible that such effects could be modified
if people changed their conscious reactions to stress.
Stress management, he noted, has been shown to lower levels of the
stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine. Steptoe said he is not aware
of any studies that have tested whether the same is true of cholesterol
levels.
SOURCE: Health Psychology, November 2005.
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