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. 2015 Mar 3;112(9):E928-36.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1411902112. Epub 2015 Feb 17.

Stress and telomere shortening among central Indian conservation refugees

Sammy Zahran  1 , Jeffrey G Snodgrass  2 , David G Maranon  3 , Chakrapani Upadhyay  4 , Douglas A Granger  5 , Susan M Bailey  3
Affiliations

Stress and telomere shortening among central Indian conservation refugees

Sammy Zahran et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Research links psychosocial stress to premature telomere shortening and accelerated human aging; however, this association has only been demonstrated in so-called "WEIRD" societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. By contrast, we examine stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with overall lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people--the Sahariya--who were displaced (between 1998 and 2002) from their ancestral homes in a central Indian wildlife sanctuary. In this setting, we examined adult populations in two representative villages, one relocated to accommodate the introduction of Asiatic lions into the sanctuary (n = 24 individuals), and the other newly isolated in the sanctuary buffer zone after their previous neighbors were moved (n = 22). Our research strategy combined physical stress measures via the salivary analytes cortisol and α-amylase with self-assessments of psychosomatic stress, ethnographic observations, and telomere length assessment [telomere-fluorescence in situ hybridization (TEL-FISH) coupled with 3D imaging of buccal cell nuclei], providing high-resolution data amenable to multilevel statistical analysis. Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures--the two salivary analytes and the psychosomatic symptom survey--and telomere length, after adjusting for relevant behavioral, health, and demographic traits. As the first study (to our knowledge) to link stress to telomere length in a non-WEIRD population, our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging.

Keywords: India; human displacement; indigenous peoples; stress; telomeres.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: D.A.G. is the founder and Chief Scientific and Strategy Advisor at Salimetrics LLC and SalivaBio LLC, and these relationships are managed by the policies of the committee on conflict of interest at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Office for Research Integrity and Adherence at Arizona State University. No other authors declare conficts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Kuno-Palpur Sanctuary and village locations of Maziran (before and after relocation) and Behruda (isolated).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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