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The Association of Neighborhood Gene-Environment Susceptibility with Cortisol and Blood Pressure in African-American Adults

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Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

African-American adults are disproportionately affected by stress-related chronic conditions like high blood pressure (BP), and both environmental stress and genetic risk may play a role in its development.

Purpose

This study tested whether the dual risk of low neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and glucocorticoid genetic sensitivity interacted to predict waking cortisol and BP.

Methods

Cross-sectional waking cortisol and BP were collected from 208 African-American adults who were participating in a follow-up visit as part of the Positive Action for Today’s Health trial. Three single-nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped, salivary cortisol samples were collected, and neighborhood SES was calculated using 2010 Census data.

Results

The sample was mostly female (65 %), with weight classified as overweight or obese (M BMI = 32.74, SD = 8.88) and a mean age of 55.64 (SD = 15.21). The gene-by-neighborhood SES interaction predicted cortisol (B = 0.235, p = .001, r 2 = .036), but not BP. For adults with high genetic sensitivity, waking cortisol was lower with lower SES but higher with higher SES (B = 0.87). Lower neighborhood SES was also related to higher systolic BP (B = −0.794, p = .028).

Conclusions

Findings demonstrated an interaction whereby African-American adults with high genetic sensitivity had high levels of waking cortisol with higher neighborhood SES, and low levels with lower neighborhood SES. This moderation effect is consistent with a differential susceptibility gene-environment pattern, rather than a dual-risk pattern. These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the importance of investigating complex gene-environment relations in order to better understand stress-related health disparities.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Dawn K. Wilson, Ph.D. (R01 DK067615; R01HD072153), and in part by training grants from the National Institute on Aging (F31 AG039930) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32 GM081740) to Sandra M. Coulon, Ph.D.

Conflict of Interest and Adherence to Ethical Standards

Sandra M. Coulon, Dawn K. Wilson, M. L. Van Horn, Gregory A. Hand, and Stephen Kresovich declare that they have no conflict of interest. The research was conducted in accordance with ethical standards outlined by the University of South Carolina’s Institutional Review Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Coulon, S.M., Wilson, D.K., Van Horn, M.L. et al. The Association of Neighborhood Gene-Environment Susceptibility with Cortisol and Blood Pressure in African-American Adults. ann. behav. med. 50, 98–107 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-015-9737-9

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