It is a known thing that stress has negative effects on the body. I have personally experienced the joy of breaking out (cough, FINALS WEEK, cough) or eating everything in sight as soon as my stress levels start raising through the roof. There are many situations that can cause stress, not just school. Family problems and violence are one of the more traumatic issues kids have to deal with first in life. Studies show that the stress actually have a very negative effect on the body; it wears down DNA.
Telomeres are found on the end of chromosomes and they act as caps that keep the DNA from unraveling. Telomeres get shorter each time the cell divides, until they get so short that the cell can no longer divide at all. Smoking, obesity, psychological disorders and stress have been found to possibly accelerate that process of telomere loss. A new study, run by Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, followed 1,100 British families with twins since the time the twins were born. The twins are now 18, but the researchers have taken DNA samples from them at ages 5 and 10 as well. The researchers also interviewed the twins' mothers extensively, and know which ones have been subjected to the stress of physical and mental violence as a child. Studies showed that the children who experienced two or more forms of violence as a child had serve telomere loss, which in the long run can lead to poorer survival and chronic disease. It is extremely sad; a child should not have to experience violence at such a young age to begin with. Something like that can cause enough problems in life. Unfortunately, it can effect health in more ways than we thought.
Taylor Pirog (2)
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It always amazes me how much psychological experiences can influence the body. From what you said, stress has very long term affects, not just mid-finals eating binges. As you said, it is very sad that a child should experience violence at all, but the fact that it gives them more long term problems, in the form of shortening telomeres, is so much worse. A study like this shows us that we need to get better control of our stress levels or else it could come back to haunt us.
ReplyDeletePosted By Erica Bonnell(1)
I think that stress and violence definitely have a negative impact on us. I did a research project freshman year about how violence in the media affect young children and the result were undeniable. If we cut some stress and violence out of our lives, people would definitely live longer.
DeletePosted by Jen Silva(3)
This is an incredibly interesting study. It seems like just about anything psychologically damaging is also damaging on somebody's health. I really hope that they actually took a look at police records and interviewed the kisd as well as the mothers to decide whether or not abuse was happening, otherwise I'm not sure I would trust the study. Great find.
ReplyDeleteMike Selden (3)
It is amazing to realize how much stress can negatively effect the body. Everyone experieneces a great deal a stress throughout their lifetime yet do not realize what harm they are casuing themselves. I hope studies like these ensure that people take the time to care more for the health of their children and themselves. Hopefully these studies will also create more opportunities such as therapy or medication for individuals in order to release stress.
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed true that stress can have negative effects on health, especially at such a young age. But we shouldn't forget that a small amount of stress is also good, as it helps with our work, memory and performing our tasks better.
ReplyDelete-Hermann Kam
I didn't know that! I believe it though, stress in small amounts had made me motivated to get my work done. Not to mention the feeling once it is accomplished is great :)
DeleteTaylor Pirog