ArticleAnnals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine2016
Post-menopausal Women Exhibit Greater Interleukin-6 Responses to Mental Stress Than Older Men.
Article in Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- IL-6 Response to Psychosocial Stress Predicts 12-month Changes in Cardiometabolic Biomarkers in Perimenopausal Women.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2020Trial
- The effect of beta-adrenergic blockade on inflammatory and cardiovascular responses to acute mental stress.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2018Trial
- Interleukin-6 responses to acute stress are not altered in alcohol use disorder despite elevated baseline inflammation.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Longitudinal associations of serum MCP-1 with cognitive decline and psychological stress in biomarker-confirmed Alzheimer's disease: A pilot study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Inflammatory profiles of transdiagnostic symptom dimensions in healthy females.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- A new ANMerge-based blood transcriptomic resource to support Alzheimer's disease research.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Associations between serum cytokine levels and postmenopausal depression in postmenopausal women with and without menopause hormone therapy.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Hot metacognition: poorer metacognitive efficiency following acute but not traumatic stress.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Higher IL-6 and IL-4 plasma levels in depressed elderly women are influenced by diabetes mellitus.Trends in psychiatry and psychotherapy · 2024Article
- Levels of IL-6 are Associated with Lifetime Attempted Suicide in Alcohol Use Disorder Patients.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2023Article
- Estradiol and COVID-19: Does 17-Estradiol Have an Immune-Protective Function in Women Against Coronavirus?Journal of family & reproductive health · 2021Review
- The risk of carotid plaque instability in patients with metabolic syndrome is higher in women with hypertriglyceridemia.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2021Article
- The Role of Mental Stress in Ischaemia with No Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease and Coronary Vasomotor Disorders.European cardiology · 2021Review
- Enduring neuroimmunological consequences of developmental experiences: From vulnerability to resilience.Molecular and cellular neurosciences · 2020Review
- Sex differences in interleukin-6 stress responses in people with Type 2 diabetes.Psychophysiology · 2019Article
- Sex-Gender Variable: Methodological Recommendations for Increasing Scientific Value of Clinical Studies.Cells · 2019Review
- Happiness and Inflammatory Responses to Acute Stress in People With Type 2 Diabetes.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2019Article
- Distinct plasma proteomic changes in male and female African American stroke patients.International journal of physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology · 2019Article
- Perceived discrimination is associated with the inflammatory response to acute laboratory stress in women at risk for cardiovascular disease.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2018Article
- Inflammatory response to mental stress and mental stress induced myocardial ischemia.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAcute stress triggers innate immune responses and elevation in circulating cytokines including interleukin-6 (IL-6). The effect of sex on IL-6 responses remains unclear due to important limitations of previous studies. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine sex differences in IL-6 responses to mental stress in a healthy, older (post-menopausal) sample accounting for several moderating factors.
methodsFive hundred six participants (62.9 ± 5.60 years, 55 % male) underwent 10 min of mental stress consisting of mirror tracing and Stroop task. Blood was sampled at baseline, after stress, and 45 and 75 min post-stress, and assayed using a high sensitivity kit. IL-6 reactivity was computed as the mean difference between baseline and 45 min and between baseline and 75 min post-stress. Main effects and interactions were examined using ANCOVA models.
resultsThere was a main effect of time for the IL-6 response (F 3,1512 = 201.57, p = <.0001) and a sex by time interaction (F 3,1512 = 17.07, p = <.001). In multivariate adjusted analyses, IL-6 reactivity was significantly greater in females at 45 min (M = 0.37 ± 0.04 vs. 0.20 ± 0.03 pg/mL, p = .01) and at 75 min (M = 0.57 ± 0.05 vs. 0.31 ± 0.05 pg/mL, p = .004) post-stress compared to males. Results were independent of age, adiposity, socioeconomic position, depression, smoking and alcohol consumption, physical activity, statin use, testing time, task appraisals, hormone replacement, and baseline IL-6. Other significant predictors of IL-6 reactivity were lower household wealth, afternoon testing, and baseline IL-6.
conclusionsHealthy, post-menopausal females exhibit substantially greater IL-6 responses to acute stress. Inflammatory responses if sustained over time may have clinical implications for the development and maintenance of inflammatory-related conditions prevalent in older women.
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