Sandwiched Grandparents and Biological Health Risks in China

This study examined the cross-sectional associations between intergenerational caregiving and health risks among sandwiched Chinese grandparents who provide care to grandchildren, great-grandparents, or both. Drawing on biomarker data from the 2011 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (N range = 2,189–3,035), we measured age-related biological health risks of hypertension, diabetes, inflammation, and allostatic load. We found that health risks did not necessarily increase with the intensity of intergenerational caregiving. Providing care to grandchildren and great-grandparents simultaneously was not as detrimental to health as reported in earlier studies from the United States. Sandwiched grandparents could benefit from providing care to grandchildren or great-grandparents only. These unexpected findings might be related to the cultural mandates of filial piety and family solidarity in China. Grandfathers and grandmothers experienced different associations between varying types of intergenerational caregiving and health risks.

Subjective Social Status and Objective Health Among Older People in England. A Longitudinal Approach With Biomarkers

Subjective social status has a known association with health, whereby better health outcomes are observed for those with higher perceived status. However, in this article we offer new evidence on the status–health relationship using a rigorous methodological approach that considers both observed and unobserved confounders. We use 14 years of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging and derive a measure of allostatic load with biomarkers as an objective measure of health. We apply ‘within–between’ panel regression models which reveal the expected association between subjective status and health when comparing participants (the ‘between’ estimate), but no association when examining temporal variation within participants (the ‘within’ estimate). When controlling for personality traits, optimism, and parental education the ‘between’ association between subjective status and allostatic also load disappears. These results suggest that perceived status is not a pathway to health, in and of itself, among older people.

Glucocorticoid-Mediated Developmental Programming of Vertebrate Stress Responsivity

Glucocorticoids, vertebrate steroid hormones produced by cells of the adrenal cortex or interrenal tissue, function dynamically to maintain homeostasis under constantly changing and occasionally stressful environmental conditions. They do so by binding and thereby activating nuclear receptor transcription factors, the Glucocorticoid and Mineralocorticoid Receptors (MR and GR, respectively). The GR, by virtue of its lower affinity for endogenous glucocorticoids (cortisol or corticosterone), is primarily responsible for transducing the dynamic signals conveyed by circadian and ultradian glucocorticoid oscillations as well as transient pulses produced in response to acute stress. These dynamics are important determinants of stress responsivity, and at the systemic level are produced by feedforward and feedback signaling along the hypothalamus-pituitary–adrenal/interrenal axis. Within receiving cells, GR signaling dynamics are controlled by the GR target gene and negative feedback regulator fkpb5. Chronic stress can alter signaling dynamics via imperfect physiological adaptation that changes systemic and/or cellular set points, resulting in chronically elevated cortisol levels and increased allostatic load, which undermines health and promotes development of disease. When this occurs during early development it can “program” the responsivity of the stress system, with persistent effects on allostatic load and disease susceptibility. An important question concerns the glucocorticoid-responsive gene regulatory network that contributes to such programming. Recent studies show that klf9, a ubiquitously expressed GR target gene that encodes a Krüppel-like transcription factor important for metabolic plasticity and neuronal differentiation, is a feedforward regulator of GR signaling impacting cellular glucocorticoid responsivity, suggesting that it may be a critical node in that regulatory network.