Stress and telomere shortening among central Indian conservation refugees.
Research links psychosocial stress to premature telomere shortening and accelerated human aging; however, this association has only been demonstrated in so-called "WEIRD" societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. By contrast, we examine stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with overall lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people--the Sahariya--who were displaced (between 1998 and 2002) from their ancestral homes in a central Indian wildlife sanctuary. In this setting, we examined adult populations in two representative villages, one relocated to accommodate the introduction of Asiatic lions into the sanctuary (n = 24 individuals), and the other newly isolated in the sanctuary buffer zone after their previous neighbors were moved (n = 22). Our research strategy combined physical stress measures via the salivary analytes cortisol and α-amylase with self-assessments of psychosomatic stress, ethnographic observations, and telomere length assessment [telomere-fluorescence in situ hybridization (TEL-FISH) coupled with 3D imaging of buccal cell nuclei], providing high-resolution data amenable to multilevel statistical analysis. Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures--the two salivary analytes and the psychosomatic symptom survey--and telomere length, after adjusting for relevant behavioral, health, and demographic traits. As the first study (to our knowledge) to link stress to telomere length in a non-WEIRD population, our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging.
Department of Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1771;
Sammy
S
Zahran
Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787; jeffrey.snodgrass@colostate.edu.
Jeffrey G
JG
Snodgrass
Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1681;
David G
DG
Maranon
Department of Sociology, Government Postgraduate College, Pratapgarh, Rajasthan 312604, India;
Chakrapani
C
Upadhyay
Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104; and School of Nursing and Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Douglas A
DA
Granger
Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1681;
Susan M
SM
Bailey
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism; D007198:Indians, North American / Q000235:genetics*; D008136:Longevity / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D059505:Telomere Homeostasis / Q000235:genetics*
D006854:Hydrocortisone
India; human displacement; indigenous peoples; stress; telomeres