Amelia PA Blog

The upcoming issue of Wired magazine has a good piece written about stress and a vaccine made to counteract it.

Researcher Sapolsky studied baboons in Africa for many years and noticed that social hierarchy determines the level of stress one experiences. For instance, the male baboons at the low end of the totem pole were skinner and “skittish” and died off earlier. The had a harder time procuring food and even female companionship.  Even toddler baboons from the lower end of the totem pole were prevented from interacting with their age group of a higher social status.  Sapolsky capitulates that this also exists in the human world. A large study was done with British civil servants – and surely enough – the janitors – not the high level workers – died off earlier from cardiovascular disease and the like.

In his lab, Sapolsky and colleagues have rewired the herpes virus (deleted the dangerous attributes) because it can cross the blood brain barrier efficiently; to dull the stress response by secreting neuroprotective substances such as estrogen and stimulate  anti-oxidant secretion.  All in all; this was done on mice, taking it to our level is still quite in the distant horizon. But promising indeed.