Psychosocial Context and the Biological Clock: Changes in Weathering during Middle-Age

项目总结 美国老年人比例史无前例的增长将不平等置于健康 老龄化是公共卫生议程的首要问题。每个人的速度往往有很大的不同 衰老。一些人表现出衰老加速和早期慢性病，而另一些人则表现出加速衰老和早期慢性病 表现出减速衰老和延缓严重疾病到90多岁。近年来，研究人员 在了解健康衰老的分子标记方面取得了很大进展，从而使 以便更早地确定慢性病的风险。拟议的研究集中在两个这样的方面 健康衰老的生物标志物--炎症性衰老和甲基组老化。这些措施为我们提供了 具有强烈预测与年龄相关的生理衰退、疾病和 死亡率。在建立了这些关于衰老速度的分子测量之后，重要的问题是 对于社会科学家和卫生政策来说，现在的问题是：老龄化的速度可以延展到什么程度， 无论是好是坏，是对心理社会背景的自然变化的反应？这个问题是焦点。 本提案的一部分。我们计划调查成年人的社会状况在多大程度上来自各种 领域，尤其是那些在家庭内部运作的领域，会影响生物衰老的速度 考虑到童年经历和潜在的令人困惑的生活方式因素， 锻炼和吸烟。我们的目标是找出加速衰老的压力源以及 支持延缓衰老。这些目标将使用来自家庭的纵向数据来实现 和社区健康研究(FACHS)，这是一项关于非裔美国人福祉的20年研究 母亲、她们的浪漫伴侣(RP)和她们的后代。关注非裔美国人的老龄化问题 是很重要的，因为他们往往发病更早，与年龄相关的疾病的患病率更高， 比其他种族群体更广泛的心理社会压力源。首先，我们将获得纵向 现在的中年母亲的炎症和甲基体老化速度的指标，如果 合作，通过收集和分析新一波血液数据，以及分析储存的 上一波的血迹。拟议的数据将提供第一次全面评估 成年期生物衰老的速度或速率的变化第二，我们将额外收取一笔 一波又一波的访谈数据，以便将支持和压力源的变化映射到 生物衰老率。

PROJECT SUMMARY Unprecedented growth in the proportion of older adults in the U.S. has placed inequalities in healthy aging at the forefront of the public health agenda. Individuals often differ dramatically in their speed of aging. Some demonstrate accelerated aging and suffer early onset of chronic illness whereas others manifest decelerated aging and stave off serious illness well into their 90s. In recent years, researchers have made much headway in understanding the molecular markers of healthy aging, thereby allowing for earlier identification of risk for chronic disease. The proposed research focuses on two such biomarkers of healthy aging – inflammatory aging and methylomic aging. These measures provide us with “biological clocks” that are strongly predictive of age-related physiological decline, disease, and mortality. Having established these molecular measures of the speed of aging, the important question for social scientists and health policy now becomes: To what extent is the speed of aging malleable, for better or worse, in response to natural shifts in psychosocial contexts? This question is the focus of the present proposal. We plan to investigate the extent to which adult social conditions from various domains, but especially those operating within the family, influence speed of biological aging after taking into account childhood experiences and potentially confounding life style factors such as diet, exercise, and smoking. Our objective is to identify the stressors that accelerate aging as well as the supports that decelerate aging. These goals will be pursued using longitudinal data from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS), a 20-year study of well-being among African American mothers, their romantic partners (RPs), and their offspring. A focus on aging among African Americans is important as they tend to suffer from earlier onset and higher prevalence of age-related diseases and a wider range of psychosocial stressors than other ethnic groups. First, we will obtain longitudinal indices of the speed of inflammatory and methylomic aging from the now middle-aged mothers and, if partnered, their RPs by collecting and assaying a new wave of blood data, as well as assaying stored blood from a previous wave. The proposed data will provide the first comprehensive assessment of change in the speed or rate of biological aging during adulthood. Second, we will collect an additional wave of interview data so that changes in supports and stressors can be mapped onto changes in the rate of biological aging.