Greater stress and trauma mediate race-related differences in epigenetic age between Black and White young adults in a community sample

Terrell D Holloway; Zachary M Harvanek; Ke Xu; Derrick M Gordon; Rajita Sinha

doi:10.1016/j.ynstr.2023.100557

Greater stress and trauma mediate race-related differences in epigenetic age between Black and White young adults in a community sample

Neurobiol Stress. 2023 Jul 21:26:100557. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2023.100557. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Terrell D Holloway¹, Zachary M Harvanek^{1

2}, Ke Xu^{1

3}, Derrick M Gordon¹, Rajita Sinha^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
² Yale Stress Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Connecticut Veteran Healthcare System, West Haven, CT, USA.

Abstract

Black Americans suffer lower life expectancy and show signs of accelerated aging compared to other Americans. While previous studies observe these differences in children and populations with chronic illness, whether these pathologic processes exist or how these pathologic processes progress has yet to be explored prior to the onset of significant chronic illness, within a young adult population. Therefore, we investigated race-related differences in epigenetic age in a cross-sectional sample of young putatively healthy adults and assessed whether lifetime stress and/or trauma mediate those differences. Biological and psychological data were collected from self-reported healthy adult volunteers within the local New Haven area (399 volunteers, 19.8% Black, mean age: 29.28). Stress and trauma data was collected using the Cumulative Adversity Inventory (CAI) interview, which assessed specific types of stressors, including major life events, traumatic events, work, financial, relationship and chronic stressors cumulatively over time. GrimAge Acceleration (GAA), determined from whole blood collected from participants, measured epigenetic age. In order to understand the impact of stress and trauma on GAA, exploratory mediation analyses were then used. We found cumulative stressors across all types of events (mean difference of 6.9 p = 2.14e-4) and GAA (β = 2.29 years [1.57-3.01, p = 9.70e-10] for race, partial η² = 0.091, model adjusted R² = 0.242) were significantly greater in Black compared to White participants. Critically, CAI total score (proportion mediated: 0.185 [0.073-0.34, p = 6e-4]) significantly mediated the relationship between race and GAA. Further analysis attributed this difference to more traumatic events, particularly assaultive traumas and death of loved ones. Our results suggest that, prior to development of significant chronic disease, Black individuals have increased epigenetic age compared to White participants and that increased cumulative stress and traumatic events may contribute significantly to this epigenetic aging difference.

Keywords: Aging; GrimAge acceleration; Race; Stress; Trauma.

Grants and funding

UL1 TR001863/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States