Stress May Raise Type 2 Diabetes Risk in Women

TUESDAY, Nov. 6, 2018 (American Heart Association) – Traditional risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure and sedentary lifestyle may not be the only predictors of type 2 diabetes. New research points to the role that stress can play in the development of the condition in women.

The study, being presented Nov. 10 at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions conference in Chicago, found that mounting stress from traumatic events, was more often than not new type 2 diabetes cases among older women.

"Jonathan Butler," the study's lead researcher and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco's Center for the Study of Adversity and Cardiovascular Disease, said: "Psychosocial stressors as risk factors for diabetes should be taken seriously; .

Diabetes is a major public health issue, affecting an estimated 30.3 million Americans as of 2015, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among those people, 12 million are 65 and older.

"As older women are more likely to have a higher proportion of our population," said Butler.

Diabetes is a chronic disease where the body can not regulate blood sugar. Too much glucose in the blood can lead to a host of health problems, including heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. While family history and age can play a role, such factors as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and physical inactivity make people more likely to type 2 diabetes.

However, researchers are starting to look beyond just physiological risk factors.

"Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said. Emerging evidence suggests that psychosocial stress and how to cope with stress may 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 snapshots in time. So, Butler and his colleagues set out to understand the relationship of multiple stressors with diabetes risk among women over time.

Researchers included data on 22,706 female health professionals participating in the Women's Health Study who did not have heart disease and who were 72. They collected information on acute and chronic stressors and then followed up for an average of three years. Acute stress included negative and traumatic life events, family relationships, finance, neighborhood and discrimination.

Women with the highest levels of acute and chronic stress

The following steps will be made to confirm the findings and identify the strategies of psychosocial stressors that are likely to decrease diabetes risk in older women, said Dr. Michelle A. Albert, the study's senior author and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco .

"From a public health perspective, health care providers should inquire about psychosocial stressors as part of their assessment of diabetes risk," she said.

For now, Golden said the new research highlights the importance of considering the role of non-traditional risk factors in the development of diabetes.

"We know that lifestyle intervention works for diabetes prevention, but that can be challenging if people experience cumulative stressors, like losing a job or caring for a family member, that hinder them from engaging in healthy behaviors like exercising, eating right or smoking cessation, she said. "It's important to assess and understand a patient's social history."