Ethnic differences in cardiovascular responses to laboratory stress: a comparison between asian and white americans

State level income inequality affects cardiovascular stress responses: Evidence from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study

RATIONALE

The slow and insidious effects of income inequality on health means that their effects can be difficult to reveal, taking many years to become apparent. These effects can also be experienced differently according to subjective status and ethnicity making the relation between income inequality and health difficult to understand. Cardiovascular reactions to acute stress are indicative of future health outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether short to medium term income inequality affected cardiovascular responses to acute stress whilst accounting for ethnic groups and subjective status.

METHOD

Participants state of residence was available for 1155 people who participated in the MIDUS biomarker data project. This detail was used to merge the relevant US state level inequality data 1, 5, 10 and 15 years prior to the MIDUS biomarker data project which assessed cardiovascular responses to acute stress.

RESULTS

Our analysis demonstrated an association between inequality 5, 10 and 15 year prior and cardiovascular reactions to acute stress. Subjective community status and Black and minority ethnic group membership interacted to affect the association between inequality and cardiovascular reactions.

CONCLUSIONS

In states where income inequality was high, less healthy cardiovascular responses were evident. However lower subjective community status and Black and Ethnic minority group members interacted with income inequality such that their impact was variable contingent on state level inequality. These findings extend the literature on income inequality and health and particularly highlights a psychophysiology pathway linking income inequality and health.

Cardiovascular Stress Reactivity and Health: Recent Questions and Future Directions

OBJECTIVE

High cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress are associated with the development of hypertension, systemic atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular disease. However, it has become apparent that low biological stress reactivity also may have serious consequences for health, although less is known about the mechanisms of this. The objectives of this narrative review and opinion article are to summarize and consider where we are now in terms of the usefulness of the reactivity hypothesis and reactivity research, given that both ends of the reactivity spectrum seem to be associated with poor health, and to address some of the key criticisms and future challenges for the research area.

METHODS

This review is authored by the members of a panel discussion held at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting in 2019, which included questions such as the following: How do we measure high and low reactivity? Can high reactivity ever indicate better health? Does low or blunted reactivity simply reflect less effort on task challenges? Where does low reactivity originate from, and what is a low reactor?

RESULTS

Cardiovascular (and cortisol) stress reactivity are used as a model to demonstrate an increased understanding of the different individual pathways from stress responses to health/disease and show the challenges of how to understand and best use the reconstruction of the long-standing reactivity hypothesis given recent data.

CONCLUSIONS

This discussion elucidates the gaps in knowledge and key research issues that still remain to be addressed in this field, and that systematic reviews and meta-analyses continue to be required.

Social support and networks: cardiovascular responses following recall on immigration stress among Chinese Americans

Social support has been shown to act as a buffer for cardiovascular responses to stress. However, little is known about how social support and networks are related to cardiovascular responses to immigration stress recall. The current study evaluated the impact of structural and functional support on cardiovascular reaction following immigrant stress recall provocation as well as the moderation effect of interdependent self-construal among first-generation Chinese immigrants. One hundred fifty Chinese immigrants were recruited in the New York Chinatown area. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their levels of social support and networks, and interdependent self-construal. Following adaptation, participants recalled a recent post-immigration stress-provoking situation. Cardiovascular measures were taken during adaptation, stressor task, and recovery period. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed. Social network size and type, as well as perceived emotional support were positively predictive of systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity changes. Instrumental support seeking was a positive predictor of SBP and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) reactivity. The moderation effect between instrumental support seeking and interdependent self-construal were significantly predictive of DBP reactivity and recovery, suggesting that perceptions about themselves in relation to others is a crucial factor for determining whether support seeking is beneficial or not. Social support was not a direct buffer on cardiovascular responses to stress among Chinese immigrants. Chinese values of interdependence and collectivism may partly explain the disconfirming results. Still, when interdependent self-construal was taken into account, Chinese immigrants who had less interdependent self-construal, but solicited more instrumental support, had faster adaptation to stress over the long term.

Morning-Evening Type and Stress-Related Personality in Japanese College Students

An earlier report by Mecacci and Rocchetti showed a significant, weak, and positive correlation between Evening type as measured by the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire and Type A personality as measured by the Jenkins Activity Survey and the Bortner Type A Scale in Italian college students. The present study of 503 Japanese college students yielded a significant and weakly negative correlation. The bases for the different results were discussed in a psychophysiological context.

Regular exercise is associated with emotional resilience to acute stress in healthy adults

Physical activity has long been considered beneficial to health and regular exercise is purported to relieve stress. However empirical evidence demonstrating these effects is limited. In this study, we compared psychophysiological responses to an acute psychosocial stressor between individuals who did, or did not, report regular physical exercise. Healthy men and women (N = 111) participated in two experimental sessions, one with the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and one with a non-stressful control task. We measured heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, and self-reported mood before and at repeated times after the tasks. Individuals who reported physical exercise at least once per week exhibited lower heart rate at rest than non-exercisers, but the groups did not differ in their cardiovascular responses to the TSST. Level of habitual exercise did not influence self-reported mood before the tasks, but non-exercisers reported a greater decline in positive affect after the TSST in comparison to exercisers. These findings provide modest support for claims that regular exercise protects against the negative emotional consequences of stress, and suggest that exercise has beneficial effects in healthy individuals. These findings are limited by their correlational nature, and future prospective controlled studies on the effects of regular exercise on response to acute stress are needed.

Perceived social support, coping styles, and Chinese immigrants' cardiovascular responses to stress

BACKGROUND

Social support and coping strategies are important determinants of health, especially for those in the immigrant community adjusting to a new environment.

PURPOSE

This study assessed the buffering effects of perceived social support and different coping styles on cardiovascular reactivity to stress among Chinese immigrants in the New York City Chinatown area.

METHOD

Participants (N = 50, 76% women, and 22-84 years old) completed questionnaires assessing their perceived social support and coping strategy preferences. They were then asked to recall a stress-provoking event related to their immigration experience in a semi-structured interview format.

RESULTS

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses confirmed the interaction effect between perceived social support and problem-focused, emotion-focused, or reappraisal coping on heart rate reactivity. Additionally, Chinese immigrants who upheld more Chinese values were highly correlated with stronger perceived availability of social support and were more likely to incorporate the use of problem-focused and reappraisal coping styles.

CONCLUSION

Findings suggest that high level of social support and the use of reappraisal coping strategies were associated with attenuated cardiovascular responses to stress.

Sexual arousal in East Asian and Euro-Canadian women: a psychophysiological study

INTRODUCTION

Studies of ethnic differences in self-report measures of sexuality have shown East Asian women to be more sexually conservative and less sexually experienced than Caucasian women. There is also strong evidence supporting the notion of ethnic group differences in general measures of nonsexual psychophysiological arousal; however, there have been no previous studies exploring ethnicity and physiological sexual arousal.

AIM

The objective of this study was to explore group differences in self-reported and physiological sexual arousal in Euro-Canadian and East Asian women living in Canada; we also aimed to explore the association between level of acculturation (both mainstream and heritage) and sexual arousal in East Asian women only.

METHODS

Seventy-five women (N=38 Euro-Canadian, N=37 East Asian) completed a battery of questionnaires and underwent psychophysiological sexual arousal testing using the vaginal photoplethysmograph. They also completed a self-report measure of subjective arousal before and after erotic stimulus exposure.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

All women completed the Female Sexual Function Index, Vancouver Index of Acculturation, and Sexual Beliefs and Information Questionnaire. Change in genital sexual arousal (vaginal pulse amplitude; VPA), and change in subjective sexual arousal were measured during exposure to erotic stimuli.

RESULTS

The groups did not differ in the percent increase in VPA induced by erotic stimuli, nor was there a correlation between VPA and subjective sexual arousal. Among East Asian women alone, neither heritage nor mainstream acculturation was correlated with change in VPA.

CONCLUSIONS

East Asian and Euro-Canadian women who show similar ratings of sexual behaviors and self-reported sexual arousal do not differ in physiological or subjective arousal induced by erotic stimuli in the laboratory.

Hostility and anger in: cardiovascular reactivity and recovery to mental arithmetic stress

BACKGROUND

Hostility and anger have been attributed as psychosocial risk factors for coronary heart disease. Heightened cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), and poor recovery, to provocative stressors are thought to hasten this risk.

PURPOSE

To examine the relationship between hostility and anger inhibition (AI), and the moderating situational influences of harassment and evaluation, in predicting CVR and recovery to mental arithmetic (MA) stress using a multiple regression approach.

METHODS

48 male undergraduate students engaged in the following 3 minute tasks during recording of the electrocardiogram, impedance cardiography, and blood pressure: baseline, MA, and evaluation. Hostility and AI were assessed with the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale and the Speilberger Anger In subscale, respectively.

RESULTS

An interaction between hostility and AI showed high diastolic blood pressure reactivity to the MA task among hostile anger inhibitors. Harassment did not modify this effect. However, harasser evaluation predicted prolonged systolic blood pressure (SBP) responding among men scoring high in AI, and facilitated SBP recovery among those scoring low on AI.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight the interactive influences of AI and hostility in predicting CVR to stress and underscore the importance of recovery assessments in understanding the potentially pathogenic associations of these constructs.

Dehydration does not influence cardiovascular reactivity to behavioural stress in young healthy humans

Enhanced hydration increases the human cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress. If reduced water intake has the opposite effect, this would suggest controlling for water deprivation when studying such responses. Blood pressure, heart rate and parasympathetically dominated beat-to-beat heart rate fluctuations were assessed during resting baseline and mental stress. Two challenging cognitive-motor tasks, a 5-Choice Reaction Time Task (CRTT) and a Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT), served as mental stress tests. Eight female and eight male volunteers were examined twice, after 24 h of water deprivation and after normal water intake (counterbalanced order, 7-day interval). Water deprivation resulted in moderate dehydration with a mean 2.6% decrease of total body weight. Dehydration did neither affect baseline blood pressure, heart rate, nor blood pressure reactivity to mental stress. However, dehydration slightly (-1.2 bpm) diminished heart rate reactivity to the PASAT (P = 0.03) and increased beat-to-beat heart rate fluctuations in response to the CRTT (P = 0.05). Dehydration intensified CRTT- and PASAT-induced reductions of beat-to-beat heart rate fluctuations in females (gender x dehydration interactions: P = 0.04-0.05). Moderate dehydration induced by water restriction has no effect on blood pressure reactivity to mental stress. The effects on heart rate reactivity are small. However, stress-induced parasympathetic withdrawal may be fortified during dehydration in females, which suggests controlling for water intake when studying such responses.

The relationship of allopregnanolone immunoreactivity and HPA-axis measures to experimental pain sensitivity: Evidence for ethnic differences

In animal models, allopregnanolone (ALLO) negatively modulates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and has been shown to exert analgesic effects. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between plasma ALLO immunoreactivity (ALLO-ir), HPA-axis measures, and pain sensitivity in humans. Forty-five African Americans (21 men, 24 women) and 39 non-Hispanic Whites (20 men, 19 women) were tested for pain sensitivity to tourniquet ischemia, thermal heat, and cold pressor tests. Plasma ALLO-ir, cortisol, and beta-endorphin concentrations were taken following an extended rest period. Lower concentrations of ALLO-ir were associated with increased pain tolerance to all three pain tests and increased pain threshold to the thermal heat pain task in the non-Hispanic Whites only (rs=-.35 to -.49, ps<.05). Also, only in the non-Hispanic Whites was cortisol associated with thermal heat tolerance (r=+.39, p<.05) and threshold (r=+.50, p<.01) and cold pressor tolerance (r=+.32, p<.05), and were beta-endorphin concentrations associated with cold pressor tolerance (r=+.33, p<.05). Mediational analyses revealed that higher cortisol levels mediated the relationship between lower ALLO-ir and increased thermal heat pain threshold in the non-Hispanic Whites only. These results suggest that lower ALLO-ir concentrations are associated with decreased pain sensitivity in humans, especially in non-Hispanic Whites, and that this relationship may be mediated by HPA-axis function.