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Anger Is Associated with Increased IL-6 Stress Reactivity in Women, But Only Among Those Low in Social Support

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Abstract

Background

Social connections moderate the effects of high negative affect on health. Affective states (anger, fear, and anxiety) predict interleukin-6 (IL-6) reactivity to acute stress; in turn, this reactivity predicts risk of cardiovascular disease progression.

Purpose

Here, we examined whether perceived social support mitigates the relationship between negative affect and IL-6 stress reactivity.

Method

Forty-eight postmenopausal women completed a standardized mental lab stressor with four blood draws at baseline and 30, 50, and 90 min after the onset of the stressor and anger, anxiety, and fear were assessed 10 min after task completion. Participants self-rated levels of social support within a week prior to the stressor.

Results

Only anger was related to IL-6 stress reactivity—those experiencing high anger after the stressor had significant increases in IL-6. IL-6 reactivity was marginally associated with perceived support, but more strikingly, perceived support mitigated anger associations with IL-6 stress reactivity.

Conclusion

Supportive ties can dampen the relationship of anger to pro-inflammatory reactivity to acute stress. Implications to cardiovascular disease are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the study participants for their support and generous contribution of time. We thank Jean Tillie and the lab team at Stanford University and Wendy Wolfson, Alanie Lazaro, and Nicole Maninger at UCSF. The research study was supported by The Division of Behavioral and Social Research at The National Institute of Aging /National Institute of Health R56 grant (Epel), the Carl & Elizabeth Naumann Fund Startup Grant (FSD), and by UCSF CTSI grant no. UL1 RR024131 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The first author is supported by award no. K99HL109247 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or other funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Eli Puterman, Elissa S. Epel, Aoife O’Donovan, Aric A. Prather & Kirstin Aschbacher

  2. SF Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Aoife O’Donovan

  3. Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Firdaus S. Dhabhar

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection, Stanford University School of Medicine, 259 Campus Drive, MC 5135, Stanford, CA, 94305-5135, USA

    Firdaus S. Dhabhar

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  1. Eli Puterman
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  2. Elissa S. Epel
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  3. Aoife O’Donovan
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  6. Firdaus S. Dhabhar
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Correspondence to Eli Puterman, Elissa S. Epel or Firdaus S. Dhabhar.

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Puterman, E., Epel, E.S., O’Donovan, A. et al. Anger Is Associated with Increased IL-6 Stress Reactivity in Women, But Only Among Those Low in Social Support. Int.J. Behav. Med. 21, 936–945 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-013-9368-0

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