Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Reactivity to Acute Stress: an Investigation into the Roles of Perceived Stress and Family Resources

Abstract

Objective Rurally situated African Americans suffer from chronic exposure to stress that may have a deleterious effect on health outcomes. Unfortunately, research on potential mechanisms that underlie health disparities affecting the African American community has received limited focus in the scientific literature. This study investigated the relationship between perceived stress, family resources, and cortisol reactivity to acute stress. Method A rural sample of African American emerging adults (N = 60) completed a battery of assessments, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and provided four samples of salivary cortisol: prior to receiving TSST instructions, prior to conducting the speech task, immediately following the TSST, and 15–20 minutes following the TSST. Results As predicted, cortisol levels increased in response to a controlled laboratory inducement of acute stress. Moreover, diminished levels of family resources were associated with blunted cortisol reactivity to acute stress. Of note, higher levels of perceived stress over the past month and being male were independently associated with lower levels of cortisol at baseline. Conclusions Lack of family resources had a blunting relationship on HPA-Axis reactivity. These findings provide biomarker support for the relationship between family resources – an indicator associated with social determinants of health – and stress physiology within a controlled laboratory experiment. Identifying mechanisms that work toward explanation of within-group differences in African American health disparities is both needed and informative for culturally-informed prevention and intervention efforts.

Stress and Achievement of Cardiovascular Health Metrics: The American Heart Association Life's Simple 7 in Blacks of the Jackson Heart Study

“…In addition, evidence suggests that derangements in stress-elicited responses (allostatic load "wear and tear") from cumulative stress exposure, particularly extreme, unpredictable, and social threats, may result in hypothalamicpituitary-adrenocortical axis dysregulation. This has been shown to lead to blunted peak cortisol reactivity to acute stress in blacks, 51 which over time is a direct biological pathway to insulin resistance. 20,51 This is relevant to our demonstrated association of increased stress from MLEs with poor glycemic control, which could profoundly contribute to the significant disparity in ideal FPG status among blacks compared with whites.…”

“…This has been shown to lead to blunted peak cortisol reactivity to acute stress in blacks, 51 which over time is a direct biological pathway to insulin resistance. 20,51 This is relevant to our demonstrated association of increased stress from MLEs with poor glycemic control, which could profoundly contribute to the significant disparity in ideal FPG status among blacks compared with whites. 3,52 It is plausible that vulnerability to tobacco use is also closely linked to the stress dysregulation phenomenon across acute and chronic (hence, cumulative) stress dimensions, because these measures were associated with decreased likelihood of reaching intermediate/ideal smoking levels.…”

The role of bicultural adaptation, familism, and family conflict in Mexican American adolescents’ cortisol reactivity

“…Examining both risk and protective processes within Mexican Amer- Table 3. Parameter estimates for the effects from cultural orientation variables to family conflict and from family conflict to the growth factors of cortisol responsivity to ican youth fills an important knowledge gap because they are a vastly understudied population in psychobiological research (Luecken et al, 2013;Obasi et al, 2015Obasi et al, , 2017 and because such studies stand to inform about basic underlying processes related to cultural influences on stress and adaptation. Addressing this gap, the present study found that Mexican American adolescents' cultural orientation significantly altered their cortisol reactivity to an acute laboratory stressor, but this was not mediated by family-related risk (conflict) or protective (familism) resources.…”

“…Our finding that family conflict was associated with blunted cortisol reactivity emphasizes the costs of cortisol hypoarousal. Within rural African Americans, Obasi et al (2017) found that blunted reactivity to the Trier Social Stress Test was linked with greater stress and lower family support within a minority sample. We draw from Mangold et al’s (2010) research on the cortisol awakening response (another HPA measure in which blunted levels may indicate lack of malleability or physiological flexibility) in order to interpret cortisol hypoarousal in Mexican Americans.…”

Combining Global Positioning System (GPS) with Saliva Collection among Sexual Minority Adults: A Feasibility Study

“…A number of studies have demonstrated that there is increased secretion of salivary stress biomarkers under different stress conditions, such as during army boot camp (31,32) and challenging mental tasks (33). For example, Obasi and colleagues (2017) reported that cortisol levels increased in response to a controlled laboratory inducement of acute stress in a sample of rural African American adults (33). However, relatively few studies have examined biomarkers of stress measured by cortisol and other salivary biomarkers among sexual minority groups (34)(35)(36)(37)(38).…”