Why does chronic stress affect your dna?

THAT'S THE WHY:There can be few people on the planet who enjoy chronic stress, and in general it's not good news for our bodies.

Research suggests that chronic stress is associated with undesirable conditions including peptic ulcers and cardiovascular disorders, and it has even been linked with damage to DNA.

Why could long-term stress damage DNA? A study published online in Nature this month claims to have identified a link in which chronic stress pushes down levels of a protective protein called p53, at least in mice.

As a background, when your body is under stress, it releases hormones such as adrenaline, that help you respond. These molecular messengers bind to receptors and then spark biochemical cascades within cells.

In this study, the researchers exposed the lab mice for several weeks to a compound that can activate the beta-adrenergic receptor on cells and so model chronic stress. And what they saw was that the “guardian protein” p53 was degraded, and levels of it fell.

We believe this paper is the first to propose a specific mechanism through which a hallmark of chronic stress, elevated adrenaline, could eventually cause DNA damage that is detectable,” said study author Robert J Lefkowitz from Duke University Medical Center in a press release that runs under the header. “At last, a reason why stress causes DNA damage”.

Lefkowitz continues: “This could give us a plausible explanation of how chronic stress may lead to a variety of human conditions and disorders, which range from merely cosmetic, like greying hair, to life-threatening disorders like malignancies.”