TY - JOUR
T1 - Relationships among socioeconomic status, stress induced changes in cortisol, and blood pressure in African American males
AU - Kapuku, Gaston K.
AU - Treiber, Frank A.
AU - Davis, Harry C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Preparation of this article was supported in part by Grants HL 69999 and HL 41781 from the National Institutes of Health.
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - The inverse relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has been posited to be partially due to exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress. Stress elicits hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation (e.g., increased cortisol secretion), which may contribute to subsequent blood pressure (BP) elevation. Univariate associations among SES, cortisol secretion, and aggregated change scores to stressors (i.e., video game and forehead cold) for systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) were assessed in a sample of 24 African American males (M age = 18.8, ± 2.7 years). Circadian variability of cortisol level was taken into account by partialling out collection time. Family SES was inversely related to initial cortisol level (partial r = -.46, p < .03). Neighborhood SES was inversely related to DBP reactivity (r = -.41, p < .05). The change in cortisol level during the stressor protocol was related to SBP reactivity (partial r = .44, p < .05). These results suggest that SES may be linked to CVD via BP and cortisol reactivity to stress, but prospective studies are needed to clarify whether such is the case.
AB - The inverse relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has been posited to be partially due to exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress. Stress elicits hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation (e.g., increased cortisol secretion), which may contribute to subsequent blood pressure (BP) elevation. Univariate associations among SES, cortisol secretion, and aggregated change scores to stressors (i.e., video game and forehead cold) for systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) were assessed in a sample of 24 African American males (M age = 18.8, ± 2.7 years). Circadian variability of cortisol level was taken into account by partialling out collection time. Family SES was inversely related to initial cortisol level (partial r = -.46, p < .03). Neighborhood SES was inversely related to DBP reactivity (r = -.41, p < .05). The change in cortisol level during the stressor protocol was related to SBP reactivity (partial r = .44, p < .05). These results suggest that SES may be linked to CVD via BP and cortisol reactivity to stress, but prospective studies are needed to clarify whether such is the case.
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U2 - 10.1207/S15324796ABM2404_08
DO - 10.1207/S15324796ABM2404_08
M3 - Article
C2 - 12434943
AN - SCOPUS:0036431351
SN - 0883-6612
VL - 24
SP - 320
EP - 325
JO - Annals of Behavioral Medicine
JF - Annals of Behavioral Medicine
IS - 4
ER -