Birth Weight and Perceived Stress Reactivity in Older Age

作者：Schlotz Wolff^*; Phillips David I W

来源：Stress and Health, 2013, 29(1): 56-63.

DOI：10.1002/smi.2425

• stress reactivity
• Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS)
• fetal growth
• prenatal adversity
• fetal programming
• Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)
• birth weight
• Hertfordshire Cohort Study
• older age
• elderly

Stress reactivity is a disposition that underlies individual differences in stress responses, thereby affecting vulnerability for the development of disease. Besides genetic and early postnatal environmental factors, stress reactivity has been shown to be influenced by an adverse prenatal developmental environment, but it is unclear if such effects persist into older age. We tested associations between fetal growth and perceived stress reactivity in 421 participants from the Hertfordshire Cohort at age 6675years. Regression analysis showed a U-shaped association between birth weight and perceived stress reactivity with increased levels of stress reactivity at the lower and upper end of the birth weight distribution. These effects were stable after adjustment for markers of early adversity and recent adversity and chronic stress. Although the effects were small, they are consistent with findings from studies in younger cohorts, and demonstrate that such effects can persist into older age.

• 出版日期2013-2