Stress May Cause Illness By Methylating Genes: MNT

The researchers invited 76 participants in their sixties to undergo two types of stressful event: one was to to take part in a mock job interview, and the other was to solve arithmetic problems under observation. Both these tests are commonly used to produce stress under lab conditions.The participants gave blood samples before the tests, and also twice afterwards: one ten minutes after (post-test), and another 1.5 hours after (follow-up). From these the researchers could measure the amount of DNA methylation in the two genes.They found that the BDNF gene remained unaffected by any of the stress tests.But the OXTR gene showed methylation changes. There was an increase in methylation in a section of the OXTR gene in the post-test measure: this suggests the cells formed fewer receptors.