{"id":60275,"date":"2016-12-22T00:59:48","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure\/"},"modified":"2016-12-22T00:59:48","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:59:48","slug":"knowing-someone-who-faced-discrimination-may-affect-blood-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/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 \u201cseem to interact with\u201d being close to someone who has experienced racial discrimination, says Connie Mulligan, an anthropologist at the University of Florida who published the findings 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\u2019t 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>\u201cIt may be more distressful to hear about bad experiences happening to people close to you than experiencing them yourself,\u201d Mulligan says. \u201cYou might think, \u2018Well, I\u2019m tough. I can handle it. I can handle whatever life throws at me. But don\u2019t you do anything to my little girl.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-backstage-wrap\"><\/aside>\n<aside id=\"ad-mobilebackfill-wrap\"><\/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?\" \/><\/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>\u201cThe report is very interesting,\u201d says Charles Rotimi, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. \u201cIt may begin to help us explain some of the disparities that we see.\u201d<\/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>\u201cSimply having an association with DNA markers could lead you astray,\u201d says Troy Duster, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cThe markers may have no connection to actual genetic function. It\u2019s a huge leap. We just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And even if the association is real, Duster questions the value of the findings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t see how this study helps us understand what anyone might do,\u201d Duster says. \u201cIf it\u2019s simply a matter of genetic associations with perceived stress, what\u2019s the implication? That you want to perceive less stress?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Mulligan argues that the findings are an important first step. \u201cBottom line: We have to understand what causes the problem before we have a chance of curing it,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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,\u201d says Thomas McDade, an anthropologist at Northwestern University. \u201cSo if we really care about improving peoples\u2019 health, then one way to go is to try to reduce the burdens of stress and unfair treatment that people are experiencing,\u201d 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 [&hellip;]<\/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-60275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}