Chronic psychological stress is associated with accelerated aging and premature morbidity and mortality; however, the biology linking chronic psychological stress and its maladaptive effects remains largely unknown. Klotho is a pleiotropic hormone that regulates the aging process and promotes better brain and body health. Whether klotho is linked to psychosocial stress or its negative impact in humans has not been investigated. To address this gap, we recruited 178 healthy women who were either chronically high-stress maternal caregivers for a child with autism spectrum disorder (n=90) or low-stress control mothers of a typically developing child (n=88). We found that women under high chronic stress displayed significantly lower levels of the longevity hormone klotho compared with low-stress controls (t(176)=2.92, P=0.004; d=0.44), and the decrease among those under high stress was age-dependent. In addition, high-stress caregivers who reported more depressive symptoms displayed even lower klotho levels compared with low-stress participants. These findings provide the first evidence that klotho levels are sensitive to psychosocial stressors and raise the possibility that klotho may serve as a novel biological link connecting stress, depression and risk for accelerated disease development. Furthermore, these findings have important implications for understanding the plasticity of the aging process and may represent a therapeutic target for mitigating the deleterious effects of chronic psychological stress on health and well-being.

Background: Stress exposure occurring across the lifespan increases risk for disease, potentially involving telomere length shortening. Stress exposure during childhood and adulthood has been cross-sectionally linked with shorter telomere length. However, few longitudinal studies have examined telomere length attrition over time, and none have investigated how stressor duration (acute life events vs. chronic difficulties), timing (childhood vs. adulthood), and perceived severity may be uniquely related to telomere length shortening. Methods: To address these issues, we administered a standardized instrument for assessing cumulative lifetime stress exposure (Stress and Adversity Inventory; STRAIN) to 175 mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder or neurotypical children and measured their leukocyte telomere length (LTL) at baseline and 2 years later. Results: Greater count of lifetime stressors was associated with shorter LTL at baseline and greater LTL attrition over time. When separating lifetime stressors into acute life events and chronic difficulties, only greater count of chronic difficulties significantly predicted shorter baseline LTL and greater LTL attrition. Similarly, when examining timing of stressor exposure, only greater count of chronic childhood difficulties (age < 18) significantly predicted shorter baseline LTL and greater LTL attrition over the 2-year period in mid-life. Importantly, these results *

Background and objectives Although it has been postulated that psychological responses to stress in adulthood are grounded in childhood experiences in the family environment, evidence has been inconsistent. This study tested whether two putative measures of neurobiological sensitivity (vagal flexibility and attentional capacity) moderated the relation between women’s reported exposure to a risky childhood environment and current engagement in suppressive or avoidant coping in response to daily stress. Design and methods Adult women (N = 158) recruited for a study of stress, coping, and aging reported on early adversity (EA) in their childhood family environment and completed a week-long daily diary in which they described their most stressful event of the day and indicated the degree to which they used suppression or avoidance in response to that event. In addition, women completed a visual tracking task during which heart rate variability and attentional capacity were assessed. Results Multilevel mixed modeling analyses revealed that greater EA predicted greater suppression and avoidance only among women with higher attentional capacity. Similarly, greater EA predicted greater use of suppression, but only among women with greater vagal flexibility. Conclusion Childhood adversity may predispose individuals with high neurobiological sensitivity to a lifetime of maladaptive coping.

Rationale : Although pessimistic individuals are at increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease, the biological mechanisms underlying this effect, and the social-environmental factors that modify these effects, remain unclear. To address this issue, we examined how pessimism, defined as the generalized tendency to expect negative outcomes, interacts with life stress exposure to predict metabolic health. Methods : Seventy-one pre-menopausal mothers – 35 had a child with autism and 36 did not – participated in the study. They ranged from 28 to 51 years-old (M=41.3, SD = 5.1), had body mass indices from 17.2 to 43 (M=25.58, SD = 5.76), and were free of major chronic illnesses, including diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Participants provided fasting blood samples, had their body measurements taken, completed the Life Orientation Test-Revised to assess their level of pessimism (M=6.37, SD = 2.96) and the Stress and Adversity Inventory to assess their exposure to chronic stress over the life course (M=7.76, SD = 4.35). Participants’ “metabolic risk” was indexed based on waist circumference, glucose, ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, triglyceride levels, and systolic blood pressure. Results : As predicted, pessimism and cumulative life stress exposure were each independently associated with greater metabolic risk, independent of age, income and caregiver status (Pessimism: β=0.49, p<0.001; Stress: β = 0.33, p=0.003). Moreover, when adjusting for age, income and caregiver status, pessimism interacted with cumulative stress exposure to predict greater metabolic risk (F=7.29, p=0.01). Decomposing this interaction effect revealed that pessimistic individuals experiencing high levels of cumulative life stress had the poorest metabolic health. Conclusions : These results suggest that pessimistic individuals living under high levels of stress may have the greatest risk for cardiovascular disease and highlight pessimistic beliefs as a possible treatment target for reducing stress-related disease burden

People who are more accepting of their thoughts and feelings experience fewer negative emotions. Although several studies document the connection between acceptance and negative emotions, little, if any research, sheds light on how being receptive to one’s internal experience results in less negativity in everyday life. In a daily diary study (N = 183), we found that people who were more accepting of their thoughts and feelings experienced fewer daily negative emotions, and this association was partly explained by less daily stressor- related rumination. The strength of this mediational pathway differed depending upon the average perceived severity of daily stressors. When daily stressors were perceived to be more demanding, trait acceptance predicted a stronger inverse association with rumination, and rumination predicted a stronger positive association with negative emotions. These results shed light on one way acceptance of internal experience predicts less negativity, as well as the moderating role of perceived daily stress.