Human cells respond in a healthy and unhealthy way to different types of happiness ...

A good mood that is, your happiness affects your genes, say the scientists. In the first study of this type, researchers from the PNEI Cousins ​​Center at UCLA and the University of North Carolina examined how Positive Psychology impacts on the expression of the human gene.

What they found is that different types of happiness have surprisingly different effects on the human genome.

People with high levels of what is called eudaim nic well-being, the kind of happiness that comes from having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life (like Mother Teresa), showed very favorable profiles of gene expression and strong expression of antiviral genes and antibodies.

However, people with relatively high levels of hedonic well-being, the kind of happiness that comes from a consumer self-gratification (for example, most celebrities), showed just the opposite. They had an adverse expression profile, including high inflammation and low expression of the antiviral gene and antibodies.

The report appears in the current online edition of the Procedures newspaper of the National Academy of Sciences.

Over the past 10 years, Steven Cole, a UCLA Professor of Medicine and a member of the UCLA Cousins ​​Center, and his colleagues, who include lead author Barbara L. Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, have examined how he responds the human genome to stress, sadness, fear and all kinds of negative psychologies.

In this study, however, researchers asked how the human genome would respond to Positive Psychology. Is this, exactly the opposite of stress and sadness, or does positive well-being activate a different type of program in gene expression?

The researchers examined the biological implications of both welfare, hedonic and eudaimonic lenses through the human genome, a system of some 21, 000 genes that have evolved fundamentally to help humans survive and be well.

Previous studies found that circulating immune cells show a systematic change in the base profiles of gene expression during long periods of stress, threat or uncertainty. Known as "conserved transcriptional response to adversity" or CTRA (acronym in English), this change is characterized by an increase in the expression of genes involved in inflammation, and a decrease in the expression of genes involved in antiviral responses .

This response, Cole notes, surely evolved to help the immune system reverse the changing patterns of microbial threats that have been associated ancestral to changing socio-environmental conditions; These threats include bacterial infections of wounds caused by social conflicts and an increased risk of viral infections associated with social contact.

"But in contemporary society and in our very different environment, chronic activation by social or symbolic threats can promote inflammation and cause cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and other diseases and can decrease resistance to viral infections, " says Cole, the author Research senior.

In the current study, researchers extracted blood samples from 80 healthy adults who were evaluated on their eudaimonic and hedonic well-being, as well as complex potentially negative behavioral factors. The team used CTRA gene expression profiles to map the potentially distinctive effects of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being .

While those with eudaimonic well-being showed a favorable expression profile of the gene in their immune cells, those with hedonic well-being showed an adverse profile of gene expression, ”people with high levels of hedonic well-being did not feel worse than those with high levels of eudaimonic well-being, "said Cole." Both seemed to have the same high levels of positive emotion. "However, their genomes responded very differently even though their emotional states had a positive similarity.

"What this study tells us is that doing good and feeling good have very different effects on the human genome, despite generating similar levels of positive emotions, " he said. " Apparently, the human genome is much more sensitive to the different ways of obtaining happiness than the conscious mind is ."

Other authors of the study include Jesua M: G: Arevalo and Jeffrey Ms, both from UCLA, and Karen M. Grewen, Kimberley A. Coffey, Sara B. Algoe and Ann M. Firestine from the University of North Carolina.

The research was sponsored by grants from the National Institute of Health (National Institutes of Health grants R01NR012899, R01CA116778 and P30AG107265).

Source : http://www.asociaciongenerarsalud.es

Human cells respond in a healthy and unhealthy way to different types of happiness ...