ArticlePreventive medicine2019
Educational attainment and allostatic load in later life: Evidence using genetic markers.
Article in Preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Cross-National and Cross-Generational Evidence That Educational Attainment May Slow the Pace of Aging in European-Descent Individuals.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Using Mendelian randomization analysis to better understand the relationship between mental health and substance use: a systematic review.Psychological medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Disparities in Allostatic Load Among Different Races: A Comprehensive Scoping Review.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Review
- Educational level and characteristics of invasive breast cancer: findings from a French prospective cohort.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2024Article
- Influencing Factors of Healthy Aging Risk Assessed Using Biomarkers: A Life Course Perspective.China CDC weekly · 2024Article
- The gender and age perspectives of allostatic load.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Review
- Race, gender, and cohort differences in the educational experiences of Black and White Americans.Population research and policy review · 2023Article
- Resilience to Maltreatment in Early Adulthood Does Not Predict Low Allostatic Load at Midlife.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2023Article
- Combined Effects of Multiple Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Exposure on Allostatic Load Using Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The Mediating Roles of Neurobiomarkers in the Relationship Between Education and Late-Life Cognition.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2023Article
- The Association of Cytomegalovirus IgM and Allostatic Load.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Education in the Jim Crow South and Black-White inequities in allostatic load among older adults.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Investigating Racial Differences in Allostatic Load by Educational Attainment among Non-Hispanic Black and White Men.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals.Nature genetics · 2022Article
- Investigation of Differences in Allostatic Load among Black Men by Level of Educational Attainment: High School Graduates Experience the Highest Levels of Stress.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Association of Food Insecurity With Allostatic Load Among Older Adults in the US.JAMA network open · 2021Article
- Roles of allostatic load, lifestyle and clinical risk factors in mediating the association between education and coronary heart disease risk in Europe.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2021Article
- Stress-induced aberrations in sensory processing predict worse cognitive outcomes in healthy aging adults.Aging · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Education is strongly correlated with health outcomes in older adulthood. Whether the impact of education expansion improves health remains unclear due to a lack of clarity over the causal relationship. Previous health research within the social sciences has tended to use specific activities of daily living or self-reported health status. This study uses a broader and objective health measure - allostatic load (AL) - to take into consideration the exposures that accumulate throughout the life course. This paper applies a Mendelian Randomization (MR) approach to identify causality in relation to education on health as measured by AL. Using the Health and Retirement Study 2008 (N=3935), we adopt a polygenic score built from genetic variants associated with years of education. To test whether our analyses violate the exclusion assumption, we further run MR Egger regressions to test for bias from pleiotropy. We also explore the potential pathways between education and AL, including smoking, drinking, marital length, health insurance, etc. Using this genetic instrument, we find a 0.3 unit (19% of a standard deviation) reduction in AL per year of schooling. The effect is mainly driven by BMI and Hba1c. Smoking and marital stability are two potential pathways that also causally influenced by education. If our main and sensitivity analyses are valid, the results find support that a higher level of education is causally related to better health in older adulthood.
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