Although you experience it in the head, your body is the first to react to stress.
With sudden onset of stress, the muscles get tense all at once, and then release their tension when the trigger passes.Chronic stress causes the muscles in your body to remain in a constant state of caution. When muscles stay tense for long, they can lead to other reactions in the body and even promote stress-related disorders. Both, tension headache and migraine headaches are associated with chronic muscle tension in the shoulders, neck and head. Then, the heart rate speeds up, muscles tighter, face turns red and there's a general sense of uneasiness and helplessness. But stress can also seep into your cells.Rising temperatures, toxins, infections, and resource shortages threaten how cells function and impact your health. Here are five ways you may be letting stress affect your cell.
PASS IT ONEnvironmental stress can reach deep into the cells' interiors and alter the genetic material held within their nuclei. And the changes can be inherited. A study showed that limited food availability during a man's lifetime was linked to his grandchildren's risk of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.Another research at an American school showed that when male mice were fed a low-protein diet, the activity of hundreds of genes in the animals' offspring changed. In particular, genes that manufacture fats were more active. While making more fats might be a protective stress response, it also could lead to obesity and related diseases.Genomic (discipline in genetics that applies recombinant DNA) research suggests a potential link between changes transmissible from parent to offspring in patterns of gene activity and changes in chemical markers, affixed to certain genes.Scientists are trying to understand the nature of these changes and how they occur.
PRODDING THEM TO TANGLEIncreased temperature can stress out cells. Expose them to temperatures just three degrees than they are used to, and the proteins in the cell begin to unravel and stop functioning. If they unravel too much, they tangle up with each other and form a clump that can kill the cell. To prevent this, cells rely on a set of molecules called heat shock proteins that work in many different ways. Some tuck the sticky, carbonrich regions of unfolded proteins into a small pocket; others form barrels that sequester unravelled proteins away from any potential tangling partners. Once the body cools down, heat shock proteins help refold into proper shapes. THEY EVOLVE Cells can adapt to stressful conditions in a short period. They use intricate mechanisms to maintain the stability of their genetic DNA material. For example, yeast -an organism commonly used to study human genetics -quickly gained or lost entire chromosomes when researchers stressed it with exposure to different chemicals.After prolonged exposure, colonies of yeast with chromosome changes evolved resistance to certain chemicals, including an antibiotic. Under stressful conditions, however, they relax these controls.
AGEING THEM PREMATURELYDoctors say, every cell in your body has its own doomsday clock, ticking down the number of times it can safely divide. This clock takes the form of a cap on the ends of each chromosome. Telomeres (a compound structure at the end of a chromosome) keep the chromosome from fraying. But they get shorter each time the cell divides. Shortened telomeres have been linked to agerelated diseases, such as arthritis, hypertension, and diabetes.Research suggests that chronic stress can dramatically shorten telomere length, causing cells to age and die prematurely. As a countermeasure, certain cells respond to temporary stressors like fear or infection by upping their production of the enzyme, telomerase, that helps telomeres maintain their length.
LEADING THEM TO SUICIDEAt the cellular level, death is essential for life. Apoptosis is a normal, programmed process of cellular self-destruction. It is called cellular suicide. And although it involves cell death, apoptosis serves a healthy and protective role in our bodies. It, in fact, helps shape our physical features and organs before birth and rids our bodies of unneeded or potentially harmful cells. This strategy sidesteps the destructive effects of a cell dying from the stressful conditions, which can kill nearby healthy cells by triggering inflammation. And since cell death plays a role in a number of neurological and cardiovascular diseases, medical experts believe understanding how cells make the life-or-death decision might lead to ways to reduce the damage caused by these types of conditions.
-TOI
