Good Relationships With Parents During Childhood as Buffers of the Association Between Childhood Disadvantage and Adult Susceptibility to the Common Cold.

Objective: Children reared by parents of low socioeconomic status (SES) go on to have elevated rates of physical health problems and premature mortality. However, many children reared in low-SES families remain healthy throughout the life-span. Here, secondary analyses of archival data tested the hypothesis that a positive relationship with parents during childhood acts as a buffer of the increased risk of adult susceptibility to infectious illness associated with low childhood SES.

Receiving a hug is associated with the attenuation of negative mood that occurs on days with interpersonal conflict.

Interpersonal touch is emerging as an important topic in the study of adult relationships, with recent research showing that such behaviors can promote better relationship functioning and individual well-being. This investigation considers whether being hugged is associated with reduced conflict-related decreases in positive affect and increases in negative affect as well as whether these associations differ between women and men. A sample of 404 adults were interviewed every night for 14 consecutive days about their conflicts, hug receipt, and positive and negative affect.

Offspring of parents who were separated and not speaking to one another have reduced resistance to the common cold as adults.

Exposure to parental separation or divorce during childhood has been associated with an increased risk for physical morbidity during adulthood. Here we tested the hypothesis that this association is primarily attributable to separated parents who do not communicate with each other. We also examined whether early exposure to separated parents in conflict is associated with greater viral-induced inflammatory response in adulthood and in turn with increased susceptibility to viral-induced upper respiratory disease.

Marital status as a predictor of diurnal salivary cortisol levels and slopes in a community sample of healthy adults.

Married people tend to be healthier than both the previously (bereaved, divorced, and separated) and never married, but the mechanisms through which this occurs remain unclear. To this end, research has increasingly focused on how psychological stress experienced by unmarried versus married individuals may differentially impact physiological systems related to health. One key system that is modulated by stress is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, of which cortisol is a key hormonal product.

Viral challenge reveals further evidence of skin-deep resilience in African Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Objective: Studies have revealed a phenomenon called skin-deep resilience, which develops in upwardly mobile African American youth. They perform well in school, maintain good mental health, and avoid legal problems. Despite outward indications of success, they also show evidence of worse health in biomarker studies.

Sleep Habits and Susceptibility to Upper Respiratory Illness: the Moderating Role of Subjective Socioeconomic Status.

Background: Sleep is a predictor of infectious illness that may depend on one's socioeconomic status (SES).

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the moderating effects of objective and subjective SES on sleep-clinical cold risk link and test whether nasal inflammation serves as a plausible biological pathway.

Methods: This study combined data (n = 732) from three viral challenge studies.

Dispositional Affect Moderates the Stress-Buffering Effect of Social Support on Risk for Developing the Common Cold.

Objective: The aim was to examine whether trait positive and negative affect (PA, NA) moderate the stress-buffering effect of perceived social support on risk for developing a cold subsequent to being exposed to a virus that causes mild upper respiratory illness.

Method: Analyses were based on archival data from 694 healthy adults (M  = 31.0 years, SD = 10.

Basal salivary cortisol secretion and susceptibility to upper respiratory infection.

The immunosuppressive effects of glucocorticoids (GCs) are well-established. However, whether the net effect of GC-elicited alterations in immune function is sufficient to influence a clinically relevant outcome in healthy adults has yet to be shown. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether inter-individual differences in basal salivary cortisol production are associated with increased risk and severity of infection and subsequent illness following experimental exposure to a virus that causes the common cold.

Self-Rated Health in Healthy Adults and Susceptibility to the Common Cold.

Objectives: To explore the association of self-rated health (SRH) with host resistance to illness after exposure to a common cold virus and identify mechanisms linking SRH to future health status.

Methods: We analyzed archival data from 360 healthy adults (mean [standard deviation] age = 33.07 [10.

Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold.

Study Objectives: Short sleep duration and poor sleep continuity have been implicated in the susceptibility to infectious illness. However, prior research has relied on subjective measures of sleep, which are subject to recall bias. The aim of this study was to determine whether sleep, measured behaviorally using wrist actigraphy, predicted cold incidence following experimental viral exposure.

Does hugging provide stress-buffering social support? A study of susceptibility to upper respiratory infection and illness.

Perceived social support has been hypothesized to protect against the pathogenic effects of stress. How such protection might be conferred, however, is not well understood. Using a sample of 404 healthy adults, we examined the roles of perceived social support and received hugs in buffering against interpersonal stress-induced susceptibility to infectious disease.

Social integration and pulmonary function in the elderly.

Objective: This study sought to determine whether social integration, defined as number of social roles, is associated with better pulmonary function in the elderly and which roles are associated with greatest benefit. It also examined pathways that connect social integration to better lung health.

Methods: High functioning men (n = 518) and women (n = 629) ages 70-79 were recruited as part of the MacArthur Study of Successful Aging, and data were collected on social roles as well as pulmonary function as assessed by peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR).

Childhood environments and cytomegalovirus serostatus and reactivation in adults.

Childhood adversity, defined in terms of material hardship or physical or emotional maltreatment has been associated with risk for infection with cytomegalovirus (CMV) among children and adolescents, and with CMV reactivation in children and adults. The present study examined whether different dimensions of childhood experience-those pertaining to socioeconomic status (SES), physical environment, or family relationships-relate differentially to CMV serostatus and reactivation during adulthood. Participants were 140 healthy adults, aged 18-55years (41% female; 64% white).

Childhood abuse, parental warmth, and adult multisystem biological risk in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study.

Childhood abuse increases adult risk for morbidity and mortality. Less clear is how this "toxic" stress becomes embedded to influence health decades later, and whether protective factors guard against these effects. Early biological embedding is hypothesized to occur through programming of the neural circuitry that influences physiological response patterns to subsequent stress, causing wear and tear across multiple regulatory systems.

Childhood socioeconomic status, telomere length, and susceptibility to upper respiratory infection.

Low socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood and adolescence has been found to predict greater susceptibility to common cold viruses in adults. Here, we test whether low childhood SES is associated with shorter leukocyte telomere length in adulthood, and whether telomere length mediates the association between childhood SES and susceptibility to acute upper respiratory disease in adulthood. At baseline, 196 healthy volunteers reported whether they currently owned their home and, for each year of their childhood, whether their parents owned the family home.

Association between telomere length and experimentally induced upper respiratory viral infection in healthy adults.

Importance: Although leukocyte telomere length is associated with mortality and many chronic diseases thought to be manifestations of age-related functional decline, it is not known whether it relates to acute disease in younger healthy populations.

Objective: To determine whether shorter telomeres in leukocytes, especially CD8CD28- T cells, are associated with decreased resistance to upper respiratory infection and clinical illness in young to midlife adults.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Between 2008 and 2011, telomere length was assessed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and T-cell subsets (CD4, CD8CD28+, CD8CD28-) from 152 healthy 18- to 55-year-old residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The prospective association of socioeconomic status with C-reactive protein levels in the CARDIA study.

Better health is a well-documented benefit of having a higher socioeconomic status (SES). Inflammation may be one pathway through which SES influences health. Using 2658 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study, we examine whether two measures of SES assessed at baseline (mean age, 32 ± 4 years)-years of education and household income-predict change in C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations over the course of 13 years.

Sex differences in the association of childhood socioeconomic status with adult blood pressure change: the CARDIA study.

Objective: To examine sex differences in the relation of childhood socioeconomic status (CSES) to systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) trajectories during 15 years, spanning young (mean [M] [standard deviation {SD}] = 30 [3] years) and middle (M [SD] = 45 [3] years) adulthood, independent of adult SES.

Methods: A total of 4077 adult participants reported father's and mother's educational attainments at study enrollment (Year 0) and own educational attainment at enrollment and at all follow-up examinations. Resting BP also was measured at all examinations.

Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk.

We propose a model wherein chronic stress results in glucocorticoid receptor resistance (GCR) that, in turn, results in failure to down-regulate inflammatory response. Here we test the model in two viral-challenge studies. In study 1, we assessed stressful life events, GCR, and control variables including baseline antibody to the challenge virus, age, body mass index (BMI), season, race, sex, education, and virus type in 276 healthy adult volunteers.

Occupational mobility and carotid artery intima-media thickness: findings from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study.

Objective: To examine whether a 10-year change in occupational standing is related to carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) 5 years later.

Methods: Data were obtained from 2350 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. Occupational standing was measured at the Year 5 and 15 CARDIA follow-up examinations when participants were 30.

Depressive symptoms, race, and circulating C-reactive protein: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study.

Objective: To examine the prospective association of depressive symptoms with circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) and to determine the direction of that association.

Methods: Using data from 2,544 healthy participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study (ages, 33-45 years; 55% female; 42% black), we examined the prospective association of depressive symptoms, as measured by the Centers for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, with circulating CRP 5 years later.

Results: Depressive symptoms in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study Year 15 predicted CRP at Year 20, independent of demographic characteristics, biological and medical risk factors, health behaviors, and Year 15 CRP.

Childhood socioeconomic status and adult health.

Socioeconomic status (SES) exposures during childhood are powerful predictors of adult cardiovascular morbidity, cardiovascular mortality, all-cause mortality, and mortality due to a range of specific causes. However, we still know little about when childhood SES exposures matter most, how long they need to last, what behavioral, psychological, or physiological pathways link the childhood SES experience to adult health, and which specific adult health outcomes are vulnerable to childhood SES exposures. Here, we discuss the evidence supporting the link between childhood and adolescent SES and adult health, and explore different environmental, behavioral, and physiological pathways that might explain how early SES would influence adult health.

Can We Improve Our Physical Health by Altering Our Social Networks?

Persons with more types of social relationships live longer and have less cognitive decline with aging, greater resistance to infectious disease, and better prognoses when facing chronic life-threatening illnesses. We have known about the importance of social integration (engaging in diverse types of relationships) for health and longevity for 30 years. Yet, we still do not know why having a more diverse social network would have a positive influence on our health, and we have yet to design effective interventions that influence key components of the network and in turn physical health.

Cynical hostility and stimulated Th1 and Th2 cytokine production.

Hostility has been associated with heightened proinflammatory activity. However, it is not known whether greater hostility contributes to greater inflammation by promoting higher Th1 activity, lower Th2 activity, or both. The present study examines the relation of hostility to mitogen-stimulated Th1 and Th2 cytokine production in vitro.