Stress and Spirituality in Relation to HPA Axis Gene Methylation Among US Black women: Results from the Black Women’s Health Study and the Study on Stress, Spirituality and Health

Abstract

Background: Few epigenetics studies have been conducted within the Black community to examine the impact of diverse psychosocial stressors and resources for resiliency on the stress pathway (hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis). Methods: Among 1000 participants from the Black Women’s Health Study, associations between ten psychosocial stressors and DNA methylation (DNAm) of four stress-related genes (NR3C1, HSDB1, HSD11B2 and FKBP5) were tested. Whether religiosity or spirituality (R/S) significantly modified these stress-DNAm associations was also assessed. Results: Associations were found for several stressors with DNAm of individual CpG loci and average DNAm levels across each gene, but no associations remained significant after false discovery rate (FDR) correction. Several R/S variables appeared to modify the relationship between two stressors and DNAm, but no identified interaction remained significant after FDR correction. Conclusion: There is limited evidence for a strong signal between stress and DNAm of hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis genes in this general population cohort of US Black women.

Keywords::

• cohort study
• DNA methylation
• psychosocial stress
• religion
• resilience

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/epi-2021-0275

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank N Vicas for superb research assistance. The authors also wish to thank the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston, MA, for the use of the Genotyping and Genetics for Population Sciences Core, which provided TaqMan OpenArray genotyping service.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This study on stress, spirituality and health is supported by The John Templeton Foundation (grant nos. 48424 and 59607). The Black Women’s Health Study is supported by R01 CA 058420 and U01 CA 164974. Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center is supported in part by an NCI Cancer Center Support (grant no. National Institute of Health 5 P30 CA06516). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Additional information

Funding

This study on stress, spirituality and health is supported by The John Templeton Foundation (grant nos. 48424 and 59607). The Black Women’s Health Study is supported by R01 CA 058420 and U01 CA 164974. Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center is supported in part by an NCI Cancer Center Support (grant no. National Institute of Health 5 P30 CA06516). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.