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TUESDAY, November 6, 2018 (American Heart Association) – Traditional risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure and a sedentary lifestyle may not be the only predictors of type 2 diabetes. new research indicates the role that stress can play in the evolution of the disease in women.
The study, presented on Nov. 10 at the Scientific Sessions conference of the American Heart Association in Chicago, revealed that the increasing stress resulting from traumatic events, as well as prolonged situations at home or at home. at work, were badociated with twice the risk of new type 2 diabetes in older women.
"Psychosocial stressors as risk factors for diabetes need to be taken as seriously as other diabetes risk factors," said Jonathan Butler, principal investigator of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Disease Control. Study of Adversity and Cardiovascular Disease at the University of California at San Francisco. .
Diabetes is a major public health problem, affecting approximately 30.3 million Americans starting in 2015, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of these, 12 million are 65 and over.
"As older women increasingly represent a high proportion of our population, we need to better understand the risk factors for diabetes in this group," Butler said.
Diabetes is a chronic disease in which the body can not properly regulate blood sugar. Too much blood glucose can lead to a host of health problems, including heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. Family history and age may play a role, but factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, and physical inactivity make people more likely to Type 2 diabetes.
However, researchers are beginning to look beyond physiological risk factors.
"We have been trying to understand the relationship between stress, mental health and diabetes risk for a while," said Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. New evidence suggests that psychosocial stress and how people cope with stress can impact cardiometabolic health.
Previous studies on stress and diabetes have focused on individual stressors, such as work or symptoms of depression or anxiety. Others have only looked at the snapshots in time. So, Butler and her colleagues began to understand the common relationship of several stressors with the risk of diabetes in women over time.
The researchers included data on 22,706 health professionals participating in the health study of women who did not have heart disease and whose average age was 72 years. They collected information on acute and chronic stressors and then followed women for three years on average. Acute stress included negative and traumatic life events, while chronic stress was related to work, family, relationships, finances, neighborhood, and discrimination.
Women with the highest levels of acute and chronic stress had almost double the risk of diabetes.
The next step will be to confirm the findings and identify targeted strategies for psychosocial stressors that can reduce the risk of diabetes in older women, said Dr. Michelle A. Albert, lead author of the study and Professor of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. .
"From a public health perspective, health care providers should educate themselves about psychosocial stressors as part of their diabetes risk badessment," she said.
For now, Golden said the new research underscores the importance of considering the role of non-traditional risk factors such as stress in the development of diabetes.
"We know that lifestyle interventions are effective for diabetes prevention, but it can be difficult if people experience cumulative stress, such as losing their job or taking care of a family member, that prevent them from adopting healthy behaviors, such as exercising, eating well or quitting, "she says. "It is important to badess and understand the patient's social history and may need to be referred to a counselor or social worker."
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