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STUDY SHOWS LINK BETWEEN OBESITY AND GENE-RELATED STRESS RESPONSE | |
| Contact: Joseph Poole, MS Phone: 706.799.7665 Email: jpoolemd@students.mcg.edu Embargoed until: March 2, 2005 |
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Vancouver, British Columbia - Looking for an extra incentive to stick to that new diet? It turns out that fitting into that smaller pant size may improve the way your body responds to stress. That is the finding of a team of researchers at the Medical College of Georgia investigating the role of genetic and environmental factors on cardiovascular reaction to stress. Results of this study were presented for the first time at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting, held March 2-5 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Scientists have identified several versions of a gene that impacts the function of adrenaline, a hormone which helps determine how the body responds to stress. This project investigated the effects of a 'bad' version of an adrenaline receptor gene. Researchers found that in overweight subjects the 'bad' version of this gene appeared to reduce adrenaline's effectiveness during stressful situations. The study involved 450 male and female young adults, with approximately equal numbers of African Americans and European Americans. All subjects participated in a video game challenge and a forehead cold stressor, two commonly used laboratory tasks designed to imitate 'real life' stressful situations. Blood pressure and heart rate measurements were conducted at rest and during the stressful periods. Joseph Poole, lead author of the study, said, "Subjects who were both carriers of the detrimental genetic variant and overweight had an increased response to stress, suggesting that the impact of a 'bad' gene depends on a person's weight." "The traditional way of thinking is that risk factors act more or less independently. We designed this study to examine the relationship between an individual's response to stress and interacting risk factors, such as genetics, obesity, gender and socioeconomic status. This finding may help explain why two individuals having the same version of an adrenaline receptor gene can respond so differently to stressful situations." | |
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Psychosomatic Medicine is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, published bimonthly. For information about the journal, contact Vicki White, Managing Editor for Manuscript Production,
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