Cell aging and resilience: associations between daily emotion regulation and increased telomerase activity

Abstract

Rationale : Chronic stress has been related to lower telomerase, an enzyme that helps preserve the integrity of DNA and slow immunological aging. However, it is unknown whether daily psychological processes reflecting healthy emotion regulation protect against stress-related immune-aging. Methods : We examined basal telomerase activity in a sample of 72 healthy premenopausal women across a range of stress levels, including 35 mothers caring for a child with autism and 37 low-stress control mothers of healthy children. Participants completed a nightly diary over the course of a week, reporting their exposure to positive and negative events. Then they rated the extent to which they employed various emotion-regulation strategies in response to these events. Within-subject weekly means for all measures were calculated. In addition, composite scores for positive affect in response to positive daily events and negative affect in response to daily stressors were calculated, and weekly means obtained. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Inventory of Depressive Symptoms. On day 4 of the study week, a fasting blood draw was performed to measure peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) telomerase activity. Results : Higher telomerase activity was significantly associated with the use of more resilient emotion regulation strategies, including more positive emotional responses to positive daily events (r=0.27, p=0.02) and increased savoring of positive daily events (r=0.24, p=0.04). In general, negative emotional responses and rumination in response to daily stressors were not related to telomerase with two exceptions: lower telomerase was associated with greater emotional suppression (r= − 0.34, p<0.01) and higher levels of depressive symptoms (r= − 0.24, p=0.05). There were no overall differences in telomerase activity between caregivers versus controls. Conclusion : These are the first findings to link daily emotion-regulation processes to telomerase activity. Daily emotion regulation strategies characterized by greater engagement with the positive and lower emotional suppression are associated with increases in telomerase, which may contribute to resilient immune cell aging. Emotion regulation, particularly in relation to the use of strategies that maintains a positive outlook in the face of stressful life exposures, may protect against cell aging.

Keywords

• emotion regulation
• cell aging
• telomerase
• telomeres
• coping
• positive psychology
• chronic stress
• psychoneuroimmunology
• resilience