Word: stress
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...study began when Elissa Epel, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, asked her colleague Elizabeth Blackburn, a biochemist, whether anyone really knew why people under stress look haggard and old. "I told her, 'Nobody has any idea,'" recalls Blackburn. "And then I said, 'Let's have a look.'" They gathered a team of psychologists and biologists and recruited 58 women ranging in age from 20 to 50. Thirty-nine of the women were the primary caregivers for a child chronically ill with cerebral palsy, autism or some other serious disorder; the rest had healthy kids. The researchers...
Even after the scientists corrected for factors such as age and body-mass index, those crucial cells looked different--in three important ways--in the women who reported the highest stress levels. First, the cells had shorter telomeres--bits of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes. In lab experiments, scientists have shown that telomeres get a bit smaller every time a cell divides, and that when telomeres are worn out, cells can't divide anymore and ultimately die. In humans, older people tend to have shorter telomeres--and by this measure, the most stressed women in the study...
Finally, the stressed women's cells had higher levels of free radicals, a type of highly reactive molecule that can damage DNA. One might argue that women whose children were born with those disorders already had something wrong with their DNA and that stress wasn't the cause. But that wouldn't explain another crucial fact: the degree of cellular damage was highest in women who had been caring for a disabled child the longest. "We tried our hardest to make the result go away," says Blackburn, "because we wanted to make sure we weren't fooling ourselves...
...hard to find much wrong with a drug that can battle fatigue and improve creativity and could even help prevent Parkinson's disease and diabetes. It's also hard to find much right with a drug that elevates blood pressure, aggravates stress, causes insomnia and leads to addiction. When both drugs are the same thing, it's hard to know what to think...
Thompson is bringing that attitude with him to his newest work on “SNL,” which he speaks of as one of the most stressful, but rewarding, experiences of his life. Although he believes working on “All That” made it easier to understand the technical aspects of the show, such as camera angles, Thompson now has the added stress of writing skits and pitching ideas. However, the mystique surrounding “SNL” and the subsequent career opportunities it brings seem well-worth the sleep lost to late nights...