Low social status 'can damage immune system'
1–10 of 75 posts
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#2> The newest member nearly always ended up at the bottom of the social order and became "chronically stressed", received less grooming and more harassment from the other monkeys.
> A detailed analysis of the monkeys' blood showed 1,600 differences in the activity levels of genes involved in running the immune system between those at the top and bottom.
Could it be that the grooming procedure itself helps with the immune system? For example, cats will often lick their fur, which could bring in small quantities of pathogens to help build an immunity. If something similar happens with the monkeys, the result might not generalize to humans.
> Dr Snyder-Mackler said: "Status is always relative, but if we could flatten the slope so the differences between the highest and lowest weren't as much, or find ways to focus attention on lower social environments so they are not as 'crappy' we could mediate some of those consequences.
It's fine for the doctor to have his own political philosophy and motivations to do this study, but I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action.
Certainly, if every conceivable biological variable except for feeling like you're at the bottom is accounted for and the effect remains, that would be a very interesting result.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#3I've always thought about this the other way around. When I feel sick or depressed I tend to drop out of society for a bit.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#4> The newest member nearly always ended up at the bottom of the social order and became "chronically stressed", received less grooming and more harassment from the other monkeys. > A detailed analysis of the monkeys' blood showed 1,600 differences in the activity levels of genes involved in running the immune system between those at the top and bottom. Could it be that the grooming procedure itself helps with the imm…
"I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action."
Already done.
I refer to the "Dunedin Study", (Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study). [0] Read the summaries of how this was/is being conducted. The most revealing insight into the links between poverty, disease and mortality. People born into poverty and who increase their wealth considerably in later life, do not get healthier.
Disease (damage to the immune system) is directly related to poverty.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin_Multidisciplinary_Heal...
[1] http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz and http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/publications
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#5As with many things, this is also more complex. This article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303694650_Primate_r... suggests that higher status animal in this particular group have a higher parasite burden.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#6> The newest member nearly always ended up at the bottom of the social order and became "chronically stressed", received less grooming and more harassment from the other monkeys. > A detailed analysis of the monkeys' blood showed 1,600 differences in the activity levels of genes involved in running the immune system between those at the top and bottom. Could it be that the grooming procedure itself helps with the imm…
"I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action." Already done. I refer to the "Dunedin Study" , (Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study). [0] Read the summaries of how this was/is being conducted. The most revealing insight into the links between poverty, disease and mortality. People born into povert…
I'm not able to speak to the statistical validity of the test, but as a software developer I find it more convincing if there's an explicit causal connection.
Like, "Poor people live in darker homes, and the photosensitive ganglion cells are connected to the part of the brain that controls melanin production. And this triggers a sleep response more often, which causes the immune system to behave in X, Y, and Z".
How does a statistician make a decision about what to change given only statistical data? It seems very mysterious to me. I understand how to interpret a scientific result(give people brighter homes), but not a statistical one.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#7As with many things, this is also more complex. This article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303694650_Primate_r... suggests that higher status animal in this particular group have a higher parasite burden.
Nietszche says to measure one's strength by the number of parasites one can support.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#8I've always thought about this the other way around. When I feel sick or depressed I tend to drop out of society for a bit.
This was my initial thought too, and I haven't read the full text, but from the abstract it seems they demonstrate causality in the other direction.
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action." Already done. I refer to the "Dunedin Study" , (Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study). [0] Read the summaries of how this was/is being conducted. The most revealing insight into the links between poverty, disease and mortality. People born into povert…
I'm not able to speak to the statistical validity of the test, but as a software developer I find it more convincing if there's an explicit causal connection. Like, "Poor people live in darker homes, and the photosensitive ganglion cells are connected to the part of the brain that controls melanin production. And this triggers a sleep response more often, which causes the immune system to behave in X, Y, and Z". How…
Causality is extremely difficult to prove in all sorts of reasonable circumstances, much less the Rube Goldberg mess of horrible chemistry that is the human corpus.
(See also for example Judea Pearl's work http://causality.cs.ucla.edu/blog/ )
Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'
#10As with many things, this is also more complex. This article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303694650_Primate_r... suggests that higher status animal in this particular group have a higher parasite burden.
Low status is stressful. And so is high status.