{"id":140844,"date":"2016-12-22T00:33:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure\/"},"modified":"2016-12-22T00:33:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:33:00","slug":"knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowing Someone Who Faced Discrimination May Affect Blood Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/12\/21\/racism-1_custom-26bf88f0c9eec726d4e23480d766efc4559d058f-s1100-c15.jpg\" class=\"img lazyOnLoad\" alt=\"Genes may have a role in increasing blood pressure in African Americans when someone close to them experiences racial discrimination.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        <img alt=\"Genes may have a role in increasing blood pressure in African Americans when someone close to them experiences racial discrimination.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Doctors have long known that black people are more likely than white people to suffer from diseases such as high blood pressure. A study suggests that racial discrimination may be playing a role in a surprising way.<\/p>\n<p>The study, which involved 150 African-Americans living in Tallahassee, Fla., found that knowing someone who had experienced racial discrimination was associated with genetic markers that may affect risk for high blood pressure.<\/p>\n<p>The genetic markers &#8220;seem to interact with&#8221; being close to someone who has experienced racial discrimination, says Connie Mulligan<\/a>, an anthropologist at the University of Florida who published the findings<\/a> in the journal <em>PLoS ONE <\/em>on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The study also found an association with genetic markers previously shown to play a role in emotional problems, such as depression, anxiety and distress, Mulligan says. Mulligan doesn&#8217;t know why discrimination experienced secondhand might have an effect when there was no association with experiencing discrimination firsthand. But she has some theories.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It may be more distressful to hear about bad experiences happening to people close to you than experiencing them yourself,&#8221; Mulligan says. &#8220;You might think, &#8216;Well, I&#8217;m tough. I can handle it. I can handle whatever life throws at me. But don&#8217;t you do anything to my little girl.&#8217; &#8220;<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-backstage-wrap\">\n<\/aside>\n<aside id=\"ad-mobilebackfill-wrap\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2015\/01\/22\/npr_122_sq-f04f3509f6edacae15dd1be0a00010ed8b814dfe-s100-c15.jpg\" class=\"img lazyOnLoad\" alt=\"Can Family Secrets Make You Sick?\" \/><\/a>         <\/p>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"BUCKETBLOCK\" --><\/p>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"BUCKET IMG\" --><\/p>\n<p><!-- END ID=\"RES506479884\" CLASS=\"BUCKETWRAP INTERNALLINK INSETTWOCOLUMN INSET2COL \" --><\/p>\n<p>Mulligan says that other factors clearly play a role in causing disparities in health among minority groups. They may have difficulties getting access to quality health care because of economic reasons or a lack of health insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Other researchers stressed that the research needs to be confirmed by follow-up studies. But they think the findings are intriguing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The report is very interesting,&#8221; says Charles Rotimi<\/a>, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. &#8220;It may begin to help us explain some of the disparities that we see.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But others questioned whether the study has found any link between genetic markers and an increased risk for high blood pressure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Simply having an association with DNA markers could lead you astray,&#8221; says Troy Duster<\/a>, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. &#8220;The markers may have no connection to actual genetic function. It&#8217;s a huge leap. We just don&#8217;t know.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And even if the association is real, Duster questions the value of the findings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see how this study helps us understand what anyone might do,&#8221; Duster says. &#8220;If it&#8217;s simply a matter of genetic associations with perceived stress, what&#8217;s the implication? That you want to perceive less stress?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Mulligan argues that the findings are an important first step. &#8220;Bottom line: We have to understand what causes the problem before we have a chance of curing it,&#8221; she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The study contributes to a growing body of research suggesting that unfair treatment and discrimination are important sources of stress, and that these stressors have real physical health implications,&#8221; says Thomas McDade,<\/a> an anthropologist at Northwestern University. &#8220;So if we really care about improving peoples&#8217; health, then one way to go is to try to reduce the burdens of stress and unfair treatment that people are experiencing,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doctors have long known that black people are more likely than white people to suffer from diseases such as high blood pressure. A study suggests that racial discrimination may be playing a role in a surprising way. The study, which involved 150 African-Americans living in Tallahassee, Fla., found that knowing someone who had experienced racial <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}