Neurobiologists find chronic stress in early life causes anxiety, aggression in adulthood. In recent years, behavioral neuroscientists have debated the meaning and significance of a plethora of independently conducted experiments seeking to establish the impact of chronic, early-life stress upon behavior – both at the time that stress is experienced, and upon the same individuals later in life, during adulthood, according to a new study, “Extended Effect of Chronic Social Defeat Stress in Childhood on Behaviors in Adulthood,” that appears online in the journal Plos One. The authors are: Irina L. Kovalenko, Anna G. Galyamina, Dmitry A. Smagin, Tatyana V. Michurina, Natalia N. Kudryavtseva and Grigori Enikolopov.
In experiments to assess the impacts of social stress upon adolescent mice, both at the time they are experienced and during adulthood, a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory team conducted many different kinds of stress tests and means of measuring their impacts. The research indicates that a ‘hostile environment in adolescence disturbs psychoemotional state and social behaviors of animals in adult life,’ the team says, according to the news release, “Neurobiologists find chronic stress in early life causes anxiety, aggression in adulthood.” The study found that chronic social defeat induced high levels of anxiety helplessness, diminished social interaction, and diminished ability to communicate with other young animals.
Does the same happen to human children placed in the company of an aggressive male? Could that be one of the reasons some people give up on trying to find friends who won’t eventually abuse, betray, or aggressively control them? And can that be a reason why constant social defeat discourages not only mice but humans from persistence in accomplishing a goal that would lead to self-reliance, financial independence, or self-confidence and esteem?
For example, if someone repeatedly fails a test (such as a driver’s license exam) and gives up, remains dependent on an aggressive partner, and ends up avoiding social contact for decades, becoming home-bound, perhaps (or fearing travel even to visit relatives) could it be due to exposure to life-long aggressive male relatives, to strangers met while traveling, and later to partners who are perceived as pools of anger by the fearful loner? As the study was done with mice, could it also apply to human anxieties, emotions, or fears such as a fear of making social contacts or a preference for remaining friendless rather than taking a chance on meeting someone who later could be threatening?
These experiments, typically conducted in rodents, have on the one hand clearly indicated a link between certain kinds of early stress and dysfunction in the neuroendocrine system, particularly in the so-called HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal), which regulates the endocrine glands and stress hormones including corticotropin and glucocorticoid.
Yet the evidence is by no means unequivocal: Adolescent mice were placed in a cage with an aggressive male
Stress studies in rodents have also clearly identified a native capacity, stronger in some individuals than others, and seemingly weak or absent in still others, to bounce back from chronic early-life stress. Some rodents subjected to early life stress have no apparent behavioral consequences in adulthood – they are disposed neither to anxiety nor depression, the classic pathologies understood to be induced by stress in certain individuals.
The tests began with 1-month-old male mice – the equivalent, in human terms of adolescents — each placed for 2 weeks in a cage shared with an aggressive adult male. The animals were separated by a transparent perforated partition, but the young males were exposed daily to short attacks by the adult males. This kind of chronic activity produces what neurobiologists call social-defeat stress in the young mice. These mice were then studied in a range of behavioral tests.
“The tests assessed levels of anxiety, depression, and capacity to socialize and communicate with an unfamiliar partner,” explains Enikolopov, according to the news release. These experiments showed that in young mice chronic social defeat induced high levels of anxiety helplessness, diminished social interaction, and diminished ability to communicate with other young animals. Stressed mice also had less new nerve-cell growth (neurogenesis) in a portion of the hippocampus known to be affected in depression: the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus.
Another group of young mice was also exposed to social stress, but was then placed for several weeks in an unstressful environment. Following this “rest” period, these mice, now old enough to be considered adults, were tested in the same manner as the other cohort
In this second, now-adult group, most of the behaviors impacted by social defeat returned to normal, as did neurogenesis, which retuned to a level seen in healthy controls. “This shows that young mice, exposed to adult aggressors, were largely resilient biologically and behaviorally,” says Dr. Enikolopov, according to the news release. However, in these resilient mice, the team measured two latent impacts on behavior.
As adults they were abnormally anxious, and were observed to be more aggressive in their social interactions. “The exposure to a hostile environment during their adolescence had profound consequences in terms of emotional state and the ability to interact with peers,” Dr. Enikolopov observes. The research described in this release was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) | USA.gov.
What happens when there are chronically ill people in the family with added food insecurity and kids are being raised in a household with an aggressive parent or relative?
On another note, with a different study, researchers report that the term cost-related medication underuse refers to taking less medication than prescribed or not taking it at all due to financial concerns. Chronically ill adults who reported food insecurity in their household (not having consistent access to food due to lack of financial stability) were significantly more likely to report cost-related medication underuse, according to a new study, “Treat or Eat: Food Insecurity, Cost-related Medication Underuse, and Unmet Needs.”
The study will appear in print in The American Journal of Medicine, April 2014.You also can read the study’s abstract published online since January 21, 2014 in the American Journal of Medicine. Authors of the new study are Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, Hilary K. Seligman, MD, MAS, and Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD.
Adults with chronic disease are often unable to meet medication and/or food needs, but no study has examined the relationship between cost-related medication underuse and food insecurity in a nationally representative sample, says the new study’s abstract. Researchers examined which groups most commonly face unmet food and medication needs.
Certain drugs can keep you alive. For example, a type 1 diabetes patient needs insulin to stay alive, and there are other conditions that require other medicines to keep patients alive.
If you had to choose between choosing a healthy food to use as folkloric medicine or to fulfill a nutritional deficiency, such as cod liver oil to get a small amount of DHA into your body, if you had a deficiency, or choosing a prescription drug and only had the money to pay for one or the other, which would you choose?
Food insecurity linked to cost-related medication underuse in chronically ill Americans. Treat or eat: Many are forced to choose between food or medicine, reports The American Journal of Medicine. Then again, there are people who have a lot of money to spend on organic food who have walked away from conventional medicine if there’s a nutritional way to get at the root cause of a health problem caused by deficiencies or environmental pollution.
For example, take the very food secure using fresh, organic food as medicine as compared to those with enough money who spend the money on prescription medicines instead of changing their diet and lifestyle. Now, in a new study, researchers have found that chronically ill adults who reported food insecurity in their household (not having consistent access to food due to lack of financial stability) were significantly more likely to report cost-related medication underuse, according to a new study in The American Journal of Medicine. Elsevier Health Sciences.
The term cost-related medication underuse refers to taking less medication than prescribed, or not taking it at all due to financial concerns. It’s as if underuse of medications is described as a deficiency of a certain expensive drug rather than trying to fix the problem with a change of diet or supplements specifically tailored to an individual instead of drugs with severe side effects.
Despite renewed optimism about the economy, many people in the United States continue to feel financial hardships
In 2012, 1 in 5 Americans reported having trouble meeting basic needs, and on top of that, 1 in 6 people reported having no form of health insurance. For the chronically ill, the difference between paying rent or putting food on the table may be the cost of their medication.
In order to explore the possible link between food insecurity and cost-related medication underuse, investigators looked at 9696 adult participants in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) who had reported chronic illness. They found that 23.4% of the chronically ill study participants reported cost-related medication underuse, while 18.8% reported food insecurity and 11% reported both. This means that 1 in 3 chronically ill NHIS participants are unable to afford food, medications, or both.
Underuse of medication is studied rather than underuse of the healthiest super foods
Investigators also looked at ethnicity and found that participants with both medication underuse and food insecurity were more likely to be Hispanic or non-Hispanic black. They were also more likely to have several chronic conditions versus those participants who reported no food insecurity or medication underuse and a lack of insurance was more prevalent in groups with medication underuse.
“The high overall prevalence of food insecurity and cost-related medication underuse highlights how difficult successful chronic disease management in the current social environment is,” says lead investigator Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, Division of General Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, according to the March 21, 2014 news release, Food insecurity linked to cost-related medication underuse in chronically ill Americans. “These findings suggest residual unmet needs for food-insecure participants and thus have clear implications for health policy.”
This link between food insecurity and medication underuse can help guide future public policy by targeting groups susceptible to both
For example, researchers found that respondents who participated in Medicaid or the Woman, Infants, and Children (WIC) food and nutrition service were less likely to report both food insecurity and cost-related medication underuse. “The observations that Medicaid and WIC participation is associated with lower odds of both food insecurity and cost-related medication underuse suggest that there may be important ‘spill-over’ effects from programs that target food insecurity or cost-related medication underuse, by freeing up available resources,” adds Dr. Berkowitz, according to the news release.
This study pinpoints populations that can benefit from policy changes influenced by this new data. Investigators noted that participants with incomes 100%-200% above the Federal Poverty Line, who are not always eligible for government assistance, reported high rates of food insecurity and cost-related medication underuse. This information is important to consider when setting program eligibility rules in the future.
“We report an association between public insurance programs, such as Medicaid and owed cost-related medication underuse compared with private insurance prescription benefits,” explains Dr. Berkowitz, according to the news release. “Low- or no-cost sharing prescription drug benefits have been associated with improved health outcomes in a general population, as well as the reduction of socioeconomic disparities in health outcomes.”
For policy makers, food insecurity represents an easily identified risk factor for cost-related medication underuse, making it simpler to find programs and strategies to address this endangered group in a meaningful way
“Food insecurity is strongly associated with cost-related medication underuse, and approximately 1 in 3 chronically ill NHIS participants are unable to afford food, medication, or both, despite participation in assistance programs,” concludes Dr. Berkowitz, according to the news release. Interventions targeted to under-resourced groups who may face ‘treat or eat’ choices could produce substantial health gains for these vulnerable patients.” You may also want to see the abstract of another study by different researches, “The Placebo Effect: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.”
