Top

European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience

Published in:

01-08-2020 | Obesity | Original Paper

Body mass index in relation to cardiovascular recovery from psychological stress among trauma-exposed women

Authors: Jeffrey L. Kibler, Mindy Ma, Maria M. Llabre

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 5/2020

Abstract

Delayed cardiovascular recovery has been associated with greater heart disease risks. However, relative to stress reactivity, cardiovascular recovery has been understudied. Further, few studies have examined associations of recovery with modifiable factors that might inform efforts to enhance recovery. The focus of the present study was whether body mass index (BMI) was associated with recovery following two stress tasks (speech and mental arithmetic). Based on the conceptualization that obesity may lead to impaired post-stress recovery, we also examined whether higher BMI accounted for previously reported associations between elevated PTSD symptoms and delayed recovery. The sample consisted of 50 trauma-exposed civilian women ages 19–49 (M±SD = 30 ± 8). The stress tasks were followed by 15-min post-task rest periods. Cardiovascular recovery was assessed as percentage return to baseline; the recovery measures consisted of heart rate (HR), cardiac output (CO), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). PTSD severity was based on structured interview. Higher BMI was associated with significantly less CO recovery from the speech task and less HR recovery from mental arithmetic. Higher BMI was associated with more SBP recovery from the math task, but was not associated with DBP recovery. The indirect effects of BMI in the PTSD/CO recovery relationship based on the Sobel test of mediation were significant. These results partially support the hypotheses that BMI is associated with cardiovascular recovery and that associations of PTSD with recovery may be mediated by BMI.

Steptoe A, Donald AE, O’Donnell K, Marmot M, Deanfield JE (2006) Delayed blood pressure recovery after psychological stress is associated with carotid intima-media thickness: Whitehall psychobiology study. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 26(11):2547–2551CrossRef

Steptoe A, Marmot M (2005) Impaired cardiovascular recovery following stress predicts 3-year increases in blood pressure. J Hypertens 23:529–536CrossRef

Brosschot JF, Gerin W, Thayer JF (2006) The perseverative cognition hypothesis: a review of worry, prolonged stress-related physiological activation, and health. J Psychosom Res 60:113–124CrossRef

Burch AE, Allen MT (2014) Stress task specific impairments of cardiovascular functioning in obese participants. Int J Psychophysiol 94:1–8CrossRef

Steptoe A, Wardle J (2005) Cardiovascular stress responsivity, body mass and abdominal adiposity. Int J Obes 29:1329–1337CrossRef

Beckham JC, Vrana SR, Barefoot JC, Feldman ME, Fairbank JA, Moore SM (2002) Magnitude and duration of cardiovascular response to anger in combat veterans with and without chronic posttraumatic stress disorder. J Consult Clin Psychol 70:228–235CrossRef

Kibler JL (2018) An extension of the perseverative cognition hypothesis to PTSD symptomatology: cardiovascular recovery in relation to PTSD severity and cognitive appraisals. J Trauma Stress 31:25–34CrossRef

Kibler JL, Lyons JA (2004) Perceived coping ability mediates the relationship between PTSD symptoms and heart rate recovery in combat veterans. J Trauma Stress 17:23–29CrossRef

Norte CA, Souza GGL, Vilete L, Portella CM, Coutinho ESF, Figueira I, Volchan E (2013) They know their trauma by heart: an assessment of psychophysiological failure to recover in PTSD. J Affect Disord 150:136–141CrossRef

10.

Crowley OV, McKinley PS, Burg MM, Schwartz JE, Ryff CD, Weinstein M, Seeman TE, Sloan RP (2011) The interactive effect of change in perceived stress and trait anxiety on vagal recovery from cognitive challenge. Int J Psychophysiol 82(3):225–232CrossRef

11.

Anderson J, Linden W, Habra MJ (2006) Influence of apologies and trait hostility on recovery from anger. J Behav Med 29:347–358CrossRef

12.

Kubany ES, Haynes SN, Leisen MB, Owens JA, Kaplan AS, Watson SB, Burns K (2000) Development and preliminary validation of a brief broad-spectrum measure of trauma exposure: the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire. Psychol Assess 12:210–224CrossRef

13.

Blake DD, Weathers FW, Nagy LM, Kaloupek DG, Gusman FD, Charney DS, Keane TM (1995) The development of a Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale. J Trauma Stress 8:75–90CrossRef

14.

Weathers FW, Ruscio AM, Keane TM (1999) Psychometric properties of nine scoring rules for the Clinician-Administered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale. Psychol Assess 11:124–133CrossRef

15.

Basco MR, Bostic JQ, Davies D, Rush AJ, Witte B, Hendrickse W, Barnett V (2000) Methods to improve diagnostic accuracy in a community mental health setting. Am J Psychiatry 157:1599–1605CrossRef

16.

Skyre I, Onstad S, Torgenses S, Kringlen E (1991) High interrater reliability for the Structured Clinical Interview. Acta Psychiatr Scand 84:167–173CrossRef

17.

Zanarini MC, Frankenburg FR (2001) Attainment and maintenance of reliability of axis I and axis II disorders: a longitudinal study. Compr Psychiatry 42:369–374CrossRef

18.

Fenig S, Craig T, Lavelle J, Kovasznay B, Bromet EJ (1994) Best-estimate versus structured interview-based diagnosis in first-admission psychosis. Compr Psychiatry 35:341–348CrossRef

19.

Kranzler HR, Kadden R, Babor T, Tennen H (1996) Validity of the SCID in substance abuse patients. Addiction 91:859–868CrossRef

20.

Sherwood A, Allen MT, Fahrenberg J, Kelsey RM, Lovallo WR, van Doornen LP (1990) Methodological guidelines for impedance cardiography. Psychophysiology 27:1–23CrossRef

21.

Balanos GM, Phillips AC, Frenneaux MP, McIntyre D, Lykidis C, Griffin HS, Carroll D (2010) Metabolically exaggerated cardiac reactions to acute psychological stress: the effects of resting blood pressure status and possible underlying mechanisms. Biol Psychol 85:104–111CrossRef

22.

Christenfeld N, Glynn L, Gerin W (2000) On the reliable assessment of cardiovascular recovery: an application of curve-fitting techniques. Psychophysiology 37:543–550CrossRef

23.

Dworkin BR (2007) Interoception. In: Cacioppo JT, Tassinary LG, Berntson GG (eds) Handbook of psychophysiology, 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

24.

Saab PG, Matthews KA, Stoney CM, McDonald RH (1989) Premenopausal and postmenopausal women differ in their cardiovascular and neuroendocrine responses to behavioral stressors. Psychophysiology 26:270–280CrossRef

25.

Kline KA, Saab PG, Llabre MM (2005) Behavioral indices of threat and challenge in Hispanic adolescents and hemodynamic responses to a speech stressor. Int J Psychophysiol 55(3):343–348CrossRef

26.

Peckerman A, LaManca JJ, Smith SL, Taylor A, Tiersky L, Pollet C, Korn LR, Hurwitz BE, Ottenweller JE, Natelson BH (2000) Cardiovascular stress responses and their relation to symptoms in Gulf War veterans with fatiguing illness. Psychosom Med 62:509–516CrossRef

27.

Preacher KJ, Hayes AF (2004) SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 36:717–731CrossRef

28.

Sobel ME (1982) Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. In: Leinhardt S (ed) Sociological methodology. American Sociological Association, Washington DC, pp 290–312

29.

MacKinnon DP, Warsi G, Dwyer JH (1995) A simulation study of mediated effect measures. Multivar Behav Res 30:41–62CrossRef

30.

Malcolm L, Kibler JL, Ma M, Tursich M, Augustin D, Greenbarg R, Gold S (2016) Psychophysiological reactivity and PTSD symptom severity among young women. Int J Psychol Neurosci 2(3):17–34PubMedPubMedCentral

31.

Alihanoglu YI, Yildiz BS, Kilic ID, Uludag B, Demirci EE, Zungur M, Evrengul H, Kaftan AH (2015) Impaired systolic blood pressure recovery and heart rate recovery after graded exercise in patients with metabolic syndrome. Medicine 94(2):e428CrossRef

32.

Buckley TC, Kaloupek DG (2001) A meta-analytic examination of basal cardiovascular activity in posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychosom Med 63:585–594CrossRef

33.

Tucker PM, Pfefferbaum B, North CS, Kent A, Burgin CE, Parker DE, Hossain A, Jeon-Slaughter H, Trautman RP (2007) Physiologic reactivity despite emotional resilience several years after direct exposure to terrorism. Am J Psychiatry 164:230–235CrossRef

34.

Schneider GM, Jacobs DW, Gevirtz R, O’Connor DT (2003) Cardiovascular haemodynamic response to repeated mental stress in normotensive subjects at genetic risk of hypertension: evidence of enhanced reactivity, blunted adaptation, and delayed recovery. J Hum Hypertens 17:829–840CrossRef

35.

Nazzaro P, Seccia T, Vulpis V, Schirosi G, Serio G, Battista L, Pirrelli A (2005) Measures of total stress-induced blood pressure responses are associated with vascular damage. Am J Hypertens 18:1226–1232CrossRef

36.

Kubzansky LD, Bordelois P, Jun HJ, Roberts AL, Cerda M, Bluestone N, Koenen KC (2014) The weight of traumatic stress: a prospective study of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and weight status in women. JAMA Psychiatry 71(1):44–51CrossRef

37.

Endrighi R, Hamer M, Hackett RA, Carvalho LA, Jackson SE, Wardle J, Steptoe A (2015) Effect of short-term weight loss on mental stress-induced cardiovascular and pro-inflammatory responses in women. Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands) 18(5):602–606CrossRef

Title: Body mass index in relation to cardiovascular recovery from psychological stress among trauma-exposed women
Authors: Jeffrey L. Kibler
Mindy Ma
Maria M. Llabre
Publication date: 01-08-2020
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keywords: Obesity
Obesity
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 5/2020
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-019-01054-5

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

Body mass index in relation to cardiovascular recovery from psychological stress among trauma-exposed women

Abstract

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 5/2020

Relationships between social stigma, stigma experience and self-stigma and impaired quality of life in schizophrenia across three Latin-American countries

Maternal verbal aggression in early infancy and child’s internalizing symptoms: interaction by common oxytocin polymorphisms

Prevalence of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and risk of cardiovascular disease in a psychiatric inpatient sample: results of the Metabolism in Psychiatry (MiP) Study

The neural correlates of low social integration as a risk factor for suicide

A follow-up study of metabolic syndrome in schizophrenia

Oxytocin modulates the effective connectivity between the precuneus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex