The Contribution of Chronic Stress and Psychosocial Resources on Aging in Young and Early Middle-Aged Females 30-44 Years of Age - In the United States, early-onset hypertension is increasingly observed in adults aged 35–44 and is associated with elevated rates of hypertension-mediated organ damage and cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. These patterns suggest an urgent need for age-targeted research into the clinical consequences of early-onset hypertension. The precise mechanisms contributing to these health outcomes remain unclear but may involve exposure to cumulative stressors—such as occupational, financial, and social strain—that can influence biological aging and cardiovascular risk, independent of economic situations. Chronic exposure to social and environmental stressors may influence cardiovascular risk and potentially diminish the protective effects of endogenous estrogen, contributing to accelerated aging and increased cardiovascular risk in midlife individuals. Chronic stress is considered a potent risk factor of accelerated aging and age-related diseases, while aging is considered a potent risk factor of CVD and is linked with arterial stiffness, a predictive marker of subclinical CVD and mortality risk. Mounting evidence suggests that moderating resources such as resilience, successful adaptation successful adaptation to stressors, may modify the relationship between chronic stress and aging. Yet, resilience may not be uniformly mitigating stress-related effects. This K23 training proposal is designed to examine physiological and behavioral factors contributing to cardiovascular risk and aging among adults in early midlife, using a mixed-method, cross-sectional design involving 81 participants. The aims are: 1) Examine the associations between overall chronic stress burden (CSB) and individual stressor types separately with biologic age (BA) and carotid femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV); 2) Examine the effects of resilience on BA and cf-PWV and whether resilience modifies the effect between CSB and BA, as well as arterial stiffness 3) Describe perceived sources of chronic stress burden and their influence on resilience using semi-structured interviews with a subsample of 18 participants selected from the highest (n=9) and lowest (n=9) combined tertiles for biological age and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity. Specific training activities during the K23 award are to obtain: 1) expertise in psychoneuroimmunology, stress, and health; 2) conduct and interpret cf-PWV measurements; 3) Phlebotomy, lab assay processing and storage; 4) proficiency and acquisition of skills in mixed-methodology research; 5) conduct advanced biostatistical linear regression methods to measure biological aging. My long-term goal is to apply the knowledge and skills obtained under this K23 to establish a longitudinal cohort investigating individual-level factors of chronic stress exposure and behavioral or physiological moderators that may enhance or mitigate physiologic dysregulation and CVD risk over time.
