Effects of stress on the development and progression of cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of disease burden globally, which underlies the continuing need to identify new complementary targets for prevention. Over the past 5-10 years, the pooling of multiple data sets into 'mega-studies' has accelerated progress in research on stress as a risk and prognostic factor for cardiovascular disease. Severe stressful experiences in childhood, such as physical abuse and household substance abuse, can damage health and increase the risk of multiple chronic conditions in adulthood. Compared with childhood stress and adulthood classic risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and high serum cholesterol levels, the harmful effects of stress in adulthood are generally less marked. However, adulthood stress has an important role as a disease trigger in individuals who already have a high atherosclerotic plaque burden, and as a determinant of prognosis and outcome in those with pre-existing cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease. In real-life settings, mechanistic studies have corroborated earlier laboratory-based observations on stress-related pathophysiological changes that underlie triggering, such as lowered arrhythmic threshold and increased sympathetic activation with related increases in blood pressure, as well as pro-inflammatory and procoagulant responses. In some clinical guidelines, stress is already acknowledged as a target for prevention for people at high overall risk of cardiovascular disease or with established cardiovascular disease. However, few scalable, evidence-based interventions are currently available.

The association of grip strength with depressive symptoms and cortisol in hair: A cross‐sectional study of older adults

“…Chronic stress is associated with a plethora of physical health conditions, with the stress biomarker cortisol likely playing a pivotal role . Literature suggests that excessively accumulating life stress, not only diminishes health, but simultaneously reduces physical activity uptake .…”

Socioeconomic status and central adiposity as determinants of stress-related biological responses relevant to cardiovascular disease risk

“…Lifestyle factors such as smoking and sedentary behaviour make an important contribution to SES differences (Stringhini et al, 2011), but direct influences on biological processes implicated in CVD are also relevant (Kivimaki and Steptoe, 2018). Psychological stress elicits disturbances in autonomic regulation, neuroendocrine factors, inflammatory markers and endothelial function (Boylan et al, 2018, Marsland et al, 2017, Wirtz and von Kanel, 2017).…”

CD8+ T cells promote cytokine responses to stress

“…Stress-induced immune modulation, mediated primarily by the stress hormones corticosterone (CORT) and adrenaline, is part of the physiological mechanism of adaptation to environmental challenges [2]. Of importance for human health, prolonged and repeated exposure to moderate to high levels of stress has been shown to be a critical factor leading to pathophysiology in almost all aspects of human diseases, including susceptibility and progression to infection [3], cancer [4], autoimmune [5], cardiovascular [6] and metabolic diseases, as well as psychiatric illnesses [7, 8]. A hallmark of the immunological response to acute psychological stress is a transient increase in circulating levels of cytokines in both humans and laboratory animals [9, 10].…”

“…Nevertheless, there is a paucity of studies examining the role of T cells on cytokines in response to stress, thus, the present study evaluated the role of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells on circulating and brain cytokine responses to repeated exposure to electric foot shocks in the learned helplessness (LH) paradigm along with corticosterone and behavioral responses. Because basal circulating levels of cytokines are used as biomarkers in clinical research [6, 11, 12, 31], cytokine measurements were performed under basal conditions, 24 h after stress sessions.…”