Stress & Aging.pdf

Thursday, February 8, 2024 Stress & Aging Aging: Can be de ned as a progressive, generalized impairment of function resulting in a loss of adaptive response to a stress and in a growing risk of age-associated disease Less able to cope Global Aging in the 21st Century 20th century – saw a global phen...

Thursday, February 8, 2024 Stress & Aging Aging: Can be de ned as a progressive, generalized impairment of function resulting in a loss of adaptive response to a stress and in a growing risk of age-associated disease Less able to cope Global Aging in the 21st Century 20th century – saw a global phenomenon of longevity Average life expectancy at birth- increased by 20 years since 1950 to 66 years What is considered “old” is changing Is expected to increase another 10 years by 2050 By 2050, the population of older people will exceed that of children: older people live longer + people do not have as many children Is a social phenomenon without historical precedent In 2002, number of persons > 60 years was 605 million By 2050, number is expected to reach almost 2 billion By the end of the 20th century, the global population aged over 60 years was approximately 600 million. In only 25 years, this number will double and by 2025 there will be 1200 million people in this age group The increase in lifespan was one of the triumphs of the 20th century This increase in lifespan in this 100 years was greater than what was attained in the previous 5000 years of human history in the late 1800s, the increase in lifespan shows Caused by penicillin (Marie Curie), better hygiene, sewer systems, better disposal of waste/ trash Before 2000s, big cause of death = infections Now, heart disease (people didn’t live long enough before) Called “lifestyle disease” (cancer as well) Changes caused by aging Men die before women (more widows than widower) HEALTH PROBLEMS: APPEARANCE Hair starts to thin & turn gray Skin starts to dry out, wrinkle and becomes inelastic Built up muscles & fat breaks down Stature begins to shrink (people get shorter) fi 1 Thursday, February 8, 2024 Eyesight begins to fail, hard to focus on far & near objects (reading), difficulty seeing during darkness Gradual loss of ability to hear Gradual slowing of reaction times CHANGES IN HEALTH 1% decline in physical strength and senses each year Obesity becomes frequent because less mobile/ active 25% of individuals over 65 are obese 40% have one chronic disease (heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis) Many elderly takes some kind of medication Major causes of death in old age: heart disease, cancer or stroke CHANGES IN LIFE SITUATION Adult transitions - Retirement & Widowhood By age 65, 50% of women & 20% of males lose spouses through death By age 80, 70% of women & 33% of males are alone Across the generations: 6-widows for every widower The longer one lives, the more people around them dies Big stressors are occurring during this period CHANGES IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING Fluid Intelligence: ability to solve abstract relational problems decreases Crystallized Intelligence: ability to accumulate knowledge and learning continues Dif culty in retrieving information from memory Some decline in processing speed Senile Dementia: forgetfulness, memory loss, disorientation, impaired thinking and attention, altered personality, dif culty in relation to others BUT adults continue to grow new brain cells throughout their lives (slower but occurs regardless) Even in late adulthood, the brain has remarkable repair capability Continued ability to acquire “new” knowledge Flexibility in “thinking processes” increases with age and experience If person is educated = less atrophy of the cerebral cortex than do those who have fewer years of schooling fi fi 2 Thursday, February 8, 2024 Some, but not all, aspects of memory decline in older adults The decline occurs primarily in episodic and working memory, not in semantic memory Successful aging does not mean eliminating memory decline, but reducing it and adapting to it Younger adults are outperformed in prospective memory tasks Why Do We Age? Video: - stress accelerates the shortening of telomeres (cellular clock theory) Length of telomere directly related to amount of stress and how long that stress is maintained - 1 year of chronic stress/caregiving adds ~6 years aging (i.e. die younger) - Telomerase: enzyme that can repair the damage Compassion, caring for others may promote longevity and increase telomerase - Managing of stress can reverse aging PROGRAMMED THEORIES: CELLULAR CLOCK THEORY Cells can divide a maximum of about 75-80 times and that, as we age, our cells become increasingly less capable of dividing Hayflick places the upper limit of the human life span at about 120 years telomeres are DNA sequences that cap chromosomes, and that each time a cell divides, telomeres become shorter and shorter Age-related telomere erosion has been found to be linked with an impaired ability to recover from stress and an increased rate of cancer formation HORMONAL STRESS THEORY Aging in the body’s hormonal system may lower resilience to stress and increase likelihood of disease With age, hormones stimulated by stress that flow through the HPA system remain elevated longer than when we were younger These prolonged, elevated levels of stress-related hormones are associated with increased risks for many diseases including heart disease and cancer As we get older, the negative feed back of HPA activation breaks down = long exposure to cortisol = vulnerability to diseases (Heart disease and cancer) DAMAGE THEORIES: FREE-RADICAL THEORY Injury caused by free radicals initiates a self-perpetuating cycle in which oxidative damage impairs mitochondrial function, which results in the generation of even greater amounts of oxygen-free radicals 3 Thursday, February 8, 2024 Video: - free radical create oxidation in the body (like rusting) = unpaired electron that attack healthy nearby cells to replace healthy electrons - Chain reaction = oxidative stress - Out of 8 causes, 4 of them are related to stress The Oxidative-Damage/Free-Radical Hypothesis Of Aging As we grow older, the influence of environmental factors on our health become more important, and the influence of genetic factors becomes less important Genes play big role earlier in life; environment/stress play bigger role later in life Our course in older age is not predetermined as we have understood it The frailty of old age is essentially avoidable and largely reversible Stresses Older adults must often deal with physical, medical or social stressors Stress can precipitate many diseases like diabetes, high BP, anxiety attacks etc Common stresses for older people are: ✓ diseases or health conditions, possibly chronic (e.g., heart disease, arthritis, cancer) ✓ perceived loss of social status after retirement ✓ death of a spouse/child/sibling (when you live really long) LOSS & GRIEF 4 Loss of a spouse is particularly stressful In 2003, more than 1 million spouses (mostly women) were widowed This number is estimated to increase to 1.5 million every year by 2030 Loss of sight, hearing, and physical disabilities can induce profound grief and loss Retirement/job loss with loss of social status is a major cause Most people grieve intensely for 6-12 months after a major loss- withdraw from others Takes about 1 year to accept the loss and start normal interaction Thursday, February 8, 2024 SUBSTANCE ABUSE A growing problem among older adults, particularly alcohol And they have nothing else to do, no one to report to, no one to notice Alcohol: consequence of stress and cause of stress as well The older you get, the less efficient your metabolism is to clear out alcohol Causes physical/mental health problems commonly, especially older men Exaggerated effects seen in older people Has negative effects on self-esteem, coping skills, and interpersonal relationships Warning flags are less obvious in older adults e.g. less likely to be caught on the job, in public Memory Decline in Normal Aging De nition: Memory refers to the storage, retention and recall of information including past experiences, knowledge and thoughts Only some types of memory loss are associated with normal aging Other types are typical of disease states Physical activity is at the crux of successful ageing, regardless of other factor Couch potatoes are now being grouped with cigarette smokers as taking their lives in their own hands Study — Cardio respiratory Fitness, Risk Factors and All-Cause Mortality, Men, ACLS - Low Cardiorespiratory fitness: higher risk of death - High cardiorespiratory fitness: longer lives - The more you exercise, the longer you live The dominant effect of fitness over other risk factors, and its apparent effect as an antidote for other risk factors, makes physical fitness perhaps the single most important thing an older person can do to remain healthy fi 5