Tag Archive | stress
The Social Ladder’s Genetic Footprint
By Rob Mitchum From the teenage years through adulthood, people spend a lot of time worrying about their social status. Whether measured in wealth as economic class or by more abstract terms of leadership and popularity in the office or among friends, social standing can weigh heavily upon a person’s mind. But can an individual’s […]
Breast Cancer in Isolation
Loneliness can be deadly. In humans, there is a statistical relationship between social interaction and mortality – the more isolated you are, the lower your chances of living a long life. Rats kept in social isolation their entire life die at a younger age than littermates who lived in groups closer to their natural social […]
Linkage 8/19: 1200 Patients, Stressed-Out Finches
The future of genetic medicine comes in many flavors, from the discovery of the rare mutations responsible for uncommon diseases to the cataloging of variants that may be responsible for common diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. A segment from last night’s ABC 7 Chicago news focused on both aspects of this potential, […]
The Stressful Truth Hidden Inside a Reverse Disparity
Over the year-long discussion of health disparities in the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics seminar series, the health gaps presented between American whites and blacks have been predominantly a one-way street. On nearly every health measure – from infant mortality to diabetes to cardiovascular disease – higher rates are observed for African-Americans. But there’s […]
Year in Review: UChicago Research 2010
ScienceLife ran 219 posts in 2010, and choosing the best of them is as hard as picking a favorite gene. So here’s a month-by-month scan of a busy year at the University of Chicago Medical Center, full of exciting discoveries in the laboratory and the clinic. The impact of some of this research is already […]
Linkage 10/15: Fetal PTSD and Goldilocks Doubt
Yesterday we talked about how Kathleen Cagney’s research appeared to reveal an effect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the body mass index of people more than a thousand miles away in Dallas. By coincidence, Discover magazine published a book excerpt (from “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives” […]
The Calming Hormonal Effect of Marriage
Married life is stressful, as any stand-up comedian or therapist will tell you. But being married or in a long-term relationship can also change not only your mood, but also your hormones and behavior as well. Biologists have known for a while that when male birds or monkeys stop mating and start raising offspring, they […]
