Somatic Symptoms Are Associated With Elevated Blood Pressure and Epstein-Barr Virus Antibodies Among Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Introduction: This study tests the hypothesis that self-reported somatic symptoms are associated with biomarkers of stress, including elevated blood pressure and suppressed immune function, among Shuar adults living in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Methods: Research was conducted in three Shuar communities in the Upano Valley of the Ecuadorian Amazon and included the collection of biomarkers and a structured morbidity interview. Participants self-reported somatic symptoms such as headaches, body pain, fatigue, and other bodily symptoms.

Lower Socioeconomic Status Predicts Increased Proinflammatory Signaling in Late Pregnancy: Evidence From a Filipino Cohort.

Objectives: Maternal socioeconomic status (SES) is an important predictor of adverse birth outcomes and postnatal health across global populations. Chronic inflammation is implicated in cardiometabolic disease risk in high-income contexts and is a potential pathway linking maternal adversity to offspring health trajectories. To clarify how socioeconomic inequality shapes pregnancy inflammation in middle-income settings, we investigated SES as a predictor of inflammatory cytokines in late gestation in a sample from the Cebu Longitudinal Health Nutrition Survey in Cebu, Philippines.

Violence victimisation and young adult cardiometabolic health: the role of timing and social identity.

Background: Adolescent violence victimisation is associated with a spectrum of adult social and behavioural health outcomes, including adverse mental health symptoms. However, underlying social stress mechanisms linking adolescent victimisation to adult cardiometabolic health remains poorly understood.

Aim: The current study aims to reveal how adolescent and adult interpersonal violence exposures each get "under the skin" to affect adult metabolic syndrome, including direct victimisation and, additionally, witnessing violence.

Effects of an Intervention on Black Family Incomes on Self-Rated Health and Obesity in Black and White Adolescents and Young Adults.

Structural racism contributes to health disparities between U.S. non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic white populations by differentially distributing resources used to maintain health.

C-reactive protein (CRP) in high altitude Bolivian peri-urban adolescents varies by adiposity, current illness, height, socioeconomic status, sex, and menarcheal status: The potential benefits and costs of adipose reserves in arduous environments.

Objectives: In non-industrialized and low-income populations, adipose stores can serve as a valuable buffer against harsh conditions such as seasonal food scarcity. However, these reserves may incur costs due to adipocytes' production of pro-inflammatory cytokines; inflammation is associated with increased risk for cardiometabolic diseases later in life. Life history theory posits that, especially in populations with high juvenile mortality, higher adiposity may nonetheless be advantageous if its benefits in early life outweigh its later costs.

Family Disadvantage, Education, and Health Outcomes Among Black Youths Over a 20-Year Period.

Importance: Upward mobility (via educational attainment) is highly valued, but longitudinal associations with mental and physical health among Black youths are less understood.

Objective: To examine associations of childhood family disadvantage and college graduation with adult mental and physical health in Black youths followed up into adulthood.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This longitudinal, prospective cohort study of Black youths from the state of Georgia who were studied for 20 years (ages 11 to 31 years) was conducted between 2001 and 2022.

Threats to social safety and neuro-inflammatory mechanisms underlying sexual orientation disparities in depression symptom severity: A prospective cohort study of young adults.

Sexual minority individuals have a markedly elevated risk of depression compared to heterosexuals. We examined early threats to social safety and chronically elevated inflammation as mechanisms contributing to this disparity in depression symptoms, and compared the relative strength of the co-occurrence between chronic inflammation and depression symptoms for sexual minorities versus heterosexuals. To do so, we analyzed data from a prospective cohort of sexual minority and heterosexual young adults (n = 595), recruited from a nationally representative sample, that included assessments of early threats to social safety in the form of adverse childhood interpersonal events, three biomarkers of inflammation (i.

Implementation of a minimally invasive cell culture system to measure the regulation of inflammation in a school-based sample of adolescents.

Dysregulated inflammation underlies many human diseases, and measures of responsiveness to activation, and sensitivity to inhibition, provide important information beyond baseline assessments of chronic inflammation. This study implements a simplified cell culture protocol in a school-based setting, using finger stick capillary blood collected from 333 adolescents (age 11.4-15.

Men's physical health and life history transitions in the Philippines: Evidence for 'marital selection' but not protective effects of partnering and fatherhood.

In Euro-American societies, married people typically have lower overall risks for total mortality and for certain chronic conditions compared to non-married people. However, people becoming partnered and parents also tend to gain weight in Euro-American settings. Few studies have tested whether links between physical health and life history status translate to other cultural contexts where the socio-ecological dynamics of family life may differ.

Evaluation of a Photo Captioning Cognitive Empathy Intervention for Dementia Caregivers.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to develop and evaluate an intervention aimed at increasing cognitive empathy, improving mental health, and reducing inflammation in dementia caregivers, and to examine the relevant neural and psychological mechanisms.

Methods: Twenty dementia caregivers completed an intervention that involved taking 3-5 daily photographs of their person living with dementia (PLWD) over a period of 10 days and captioning those photos with descriptive text capturing the inner voice of the PLWD. Both before and after the intervention, participants completed questionnaires, provided a blood sample for measures of inflammation, and completed a neuroimaging session to measure their neural response to viewing photographs of their PLWD and others.

Intimate partner violence, depression, and chronic low-grade inflammation among middle-aged women in Cebu, Philippines.

Objectives: Recent discussions in human biology have highlighted how local ecological contexts shape the relationship between social stressors and health across populations. Chronic low-grade inflammation has been proposed as a pathway linking social stressors to health, with evidence concentrated in high-income Western contexts. However, it remains unclear whether this is an important pathway in populations where prevalence is lower due to lower adiposity and greater infectious exposures.

Infectious Illness Symptoms Are Associated with Elevated Anxiety in a Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: To evaluate whether infectious illness symptoms (IIS) are associated with generalized anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in sexual/gender (SGM) minority young adults assigned male at birth (AMAB).

Method: Four hundred eighteen participants (median age = 25; range, 20-40) were recruited through RADAR, an ongoing Chicago-based cohort study of SGM-AMAB between September 2020 and February 2021. Participants completed online surveys.

Three common assumptions about inflammation, aging, and health that are probably wrong.

Chronic inflammation contributes to the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease and other degenerative diseases of aging. But does it have to? This article considers the associations among inflammation, aging, and health through the lens of human population biology and suggests that chronic inflammation is not a normal nor inevitable component of aging. It is commonly assumed that conclusions drawn from research in affluent, industrialized countries can be applied globally; that aging processes leading to morbidity and mortality begin in middle age; and that inflammation is pathological.

Employee Cardiometabolic Risk Following a Cluster-Randomized Workplace Intervention From the Work, Family and Health Network, 2009-2013.

To examine whether workplace interventions to increase workplace flexibility and supervisor support and decrease work-family conflict can reduce cardiometabolic risk. We randomly assigned employees from information technology (n = 555) and long-term care (n = 973) industries in the United States to the Work, Family and Health Network intervention or usual practice (we collected the data 2009-2013). We calculated a validated cardiometabolic risk score (CRS) based on resting blood pressure, HbA (glycated hemoglobin), HDL (high-density lipoprotein) and total cholesterol, height and weight (body mass index), and tobacco consumption.

Trauma History Predicts Decoupling of C-Reactive Protein and Somatic Symptoms: Results From a Cohort Study of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth.

Objective: Systemic inflammation can induce somatic symptoms (e.g., pain, nausea, fatigue) through neuroimmune signaling pathways.

Prenatal household size and composition are associated with infant fecal bacterial diversity in Cebu, Philippines.

Objectives: The gut microbiome (GM) connects physical and social environments to infant health. Since the infant GM affects immune system development, there is interest in understanding how infants acquire microbes from mothers and other household members.

Materials And Methods: As a part of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS), we paired fecal samples (proxy for the GM) collected from infants living in Metro Cebu, Philippines at 2 weeks (N = 39) and 6 months (N = 36) with maternal interviews about prenatal household composition.

No difference in anti-spike antibody and surrogate viral neutralization following SARS-CoV-2 booster vaccination in persons with HIV compared to controls (CO-HIV Study).

Background: Understanding the immune response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination will enable accurate counseling and inform evolving vaccination strategies. Little is known about antibody response following booster vaccination in people living with HIV (PLWH).

Methods: We enrolled SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated PLWH and controls without HIV in similar proportions based on age and comorbidities.