High Allostatic Load Correlates with Greater Risk of Cancer Mortality

Allostatic load is a compound measure of stress on the body, usually including an emphasis on inflammatory activity in the immune system. The measures making up allostatic load are raised by psychological stress, chronic exposure to pathogens or pollutants, and similar circumstances. Researchers here note that this, perhaps unsurprisingly, correlates with increased cancer mortality. Greater inflammation produces a more hospitable environment for cancer to occur and then grow, and the relationship between allostatic load and cancer may indeed be largely determined by the state of the immune system. Allostatic load attempts to quantify physiological stress by measuring biomarkers across cardiovascular, immune, and metabolic systems. It has been defined using varying configurations, although most incorporate biomarker measures from these three different categories of physiologic functioning. While there is no consensus definition, we elected to define allostatic load using components including body mass index (BMI), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), glycohemoglobin (hemoglobin A1c), systolic blood pressure (SBP), total cholesterol, serum triglycerides, serum albumin, serum creatinine, and C-reactive protein (CRP). Chronic stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system, causing the release of corticosteroids and catecholamines respectively. Frequent exposure to these compounds have been linked to the development of canc...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs