SOCI 588 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Menopause, Observational Error, Longitudinal Study

• School: McGill University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI 588
• Professor: Aniruddha Bobby Das

Document Summary

Geronimus et al. used telomere length in a subset of leudocytes called peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmcs) as an indicator of accelerated biological aging. Telomeres, the stabilizing caps on chromosomes, shorten with cell division unil a certain point, at which the chromosomes are no longer stable and the cell either dies or enters senescence. And since breaks in the dna structure due to oxidaive stress are not easily repaired in telomeres, oxidaive stress is an important mechanism by which telomeres are shortened. Telomere length is inversely related to age, stressful situaions (high-demand caregiving and low socioeconomic status), stress biomarkers (corisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine), chronic diseases (hypertension, atherosclerosis, cirrhosis, and diabetes) and mortality. Thus, geronimus et al. hypothesize that by middle age, black women have shorter average telomere length than white women owing to a lifeime of repeated adaptaion to material, psychosocial, and environmental stressors posing signiicant challenge to homeostasis.