Similarities between husbands and wives in rates of catecholamine excretion

A System of Cardiac Rehabilitation: Psychophysiological Basis and Practice

In the past, exercise therapy has been widely employed as the basis of cardiac rehabilitation, but reviews have not shown great benefit.1 Attention is now turning to models which help the patient to learn to defend the integrity of his internal milieu in the face of an external environment which is challenging, uncertain and rapidly changing. This discussion paper describes the Charing Cross Model, its psychophysiological basis, practice and implications for occupational therapy.

Beyond catecholamines: Measuring autonomic responses to psychosocial context

Despite longstanding interest among human biologists in autonomic responses to socioecological context or culture change, the adoption of autonomic measures has been limited by methodological challenges. Catecholamine secretion is the most direct measure, but not all study designs are amenable to urinary sampling, and blood pressure lacks specificity to the parasympathetic or sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. This article reviews three alternative approaches for measuring autonomic responses: salivary α-amylase as a nonspecific autonomic marker, respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a specific parasympathetic marker, and the pre-ejection period as a specific sympathetic marker. Study design considerations are discussed in detail, including ambulatory sampling protocols that permit the evaluation of autonomic responses to everyday life. Researchers interested in how culture and social experience "get under the skin," as well as those concerned with the evolution of social engagement, can benefit from these well-validated biomarkers that are nevertheless relatively novel in human biology. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:309-317, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Life of Research in Biological Anthropology

I much appreciated being invited to write a contribution for this journal, but initially presumed that what was required was a comprehensive review of some major issue in biological anthropology. Indeed I drafted a contribution on the history of the subject during the second part of the twentieth century. I was then firmly told that this was not what was wanted, rather something much more autobiographical. Well that is what you have got: an extremely personal account of my own research career over some 50 years in biological anthropology. I have summarized the results of what I consider the main projects I and my colleagues have undertaken and tried to document successes and failures. I cannot claim any earth-shattering discovery but hope that we have contributed in a substantial way to the further understanding of the nature of human variation, a main concern of biological anthropology in the second half of the twentieth century.

Cortisol and testosterone levels on a weekend and a work day in three mountain villages in the Selska Valley of northwest Slovenia

BACKGROUND

In contemporary western populations, a week commonly involves 5 days of paid work (work days) and two non-working days (weekend). Work days are usually perceived as being more stressful than non-work days and this hypothesis has been tested in several studies, most of which selected subjects with jobs that are perceived to have high stress.

AIM

The study measured salivary cortisol and testosterone on a work day and a weekend in a community-based sample of people going about their everyday lives and tested the hypothesis that hormone levels will be higher on a work day.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

Slovenian alpine villagers (30 females and 25 males) were sampled without reference to their occupation. Each individual was measured on two occasions, a day on a weekend and a work day as they went about their usual activities in the afternoon.

RESULTS

Cortisol (mean = 3.32 ng ml(-1), range 0.4-27.9) and testosterone (mean = 121 pg ml(-1), range 17-424) values were similar to other populations. Neither the age of subjects nor the time in the afternoon of sample collection were associated with hormone concentrations. On each day of collection, cortisol and testosterone values were correlated for each sex, with the estimate of the correlation coefficient ranging from 0.57 to 0.88. For females, testosterone values were higher on the weekend than the work day (102 pg ml(-1) and 60 pg ml(-1), respectively) but not for males (mean across both days 134 pg ml(-1)). Independent of this effect, the presence of a spouse or other adult in the house was significantly associated with lower testosterone levels in both sexes. Husband and wife testosterone values are correlated on the weekend (r = 0.67, p = 0.02) but not on the work day. Mean cortisol values for the weekend and work day were not different and there was no correlation between levels on these two days.

CONCLUSIONS

These results, although based upon a small sample size, reveal potential relationships between testosterone, work-rest activities, and the presence-absence of a social partner that warrant further investigation.

Physiological variation and adaptability in human populations

This review traces some of the developments in population physiology based on contributions to the Annals over the last 25 years. Two broad themes are evident, physiological systems variation and adaptation, and by way of introduction an historical perspective of their relationship within human ecology is explored. Studies of physical fitness and work capacity, and the efforts to create standardized field procedures make up a number of the early papers. Longitudinal studies have provided reliable reference standards for Westernized populations, but are virtually non-existent for primitive groups. The relative importance of phenotypic and genotypic variations in working capacity have yet to be clearly defined. The level of habitual activity during childhood contributes to the development of ventilatory capacity though constitutional influences are of major importance. Variability in strength and motor performance of skeletal muscles are shown to have a direct bearing on aspects of growth, development and biological maturation. Physical and psychological stress in communities have been investigated. These and other studies contribute valuable data on the issue of stress, hypertension and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. On the theme of human adaptability, high altitude populations, variations in thermal tolerance and adaptations in ageing populations have all received recent investigation. Highland people of all ages have considerably larger lung volumes than coastal dwellers. Haematological, biochemical and pulmonary function show adaptive phenomena that vary in different highland groups. In the tropical biome, more recent work includes the functional consequences of malnutrition, ethnic and cultural differences in work capacity, and the effects of endemic disease on physical performance. Annals of Human Biology papers have more recently contributed to investigations on morphological and physiological changes with human ageing. Though there is a decline in the ability to adapt to environmental stresses with age this may be met by changes in adaptational strategy in physiological systems.

Heritability of craniometric and occlusal variables: a longitudinal sib analysis

There has long been interest in the inheritance of malocclusion, but few studies have distinguished between skeletal (craniometric) variables and occlusal, tooth-based variables (e.g., anterior irregularity, rotations, displacements). This study was based on serial assessments of untreated persons in 30 sibships from 4 years (full deciduous dentition) to 20 years of age (full permanent dentition) in the Bolton-Brush Growth Studies of Ohio. Results define a clear dichotomy: craniometric variables (k = 29) typically show significant additive components of variance; correlations increase from age 4 to age 20; and correlations average 0.43 at adulthood. Tooth-based variables of position and relationship (k = 21) reach significance only occasionally; correlations decrease with age to the extent that few variables for subjects at age 20 have a correlation significantly different from zero. In contrast to craniometric variables, which have high heritabilities, almost all of the occlusal variability is acquired rather than inherited.

Canonical correlation analysis of assortative mating in two groups of Brazilians

In two groups of people, 98 couples in which the husband was a military serviceman and 63 couples of Jewish ancestry living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, age at marriage, age at time of survey, fifteen anthropometric variables, and hair and eye colour were studied. Proper adjustments of the data were made taking into consideration duration of cohabitation, aging and secular effects, and skewness in the distributions. There are some differences between the two groups in age at marriage, but in both there is a tendency for those currently older to have married later in life. The correlation coefficients between spouses are with very few exceptions positive, with no indication of preferences for opposites. Size and factors related to body build are the most readily detectable agents in the assortative mating occurring in this population, but in the military group relative lengths of leg and trunk, rather than stature itself, are important in conditioning mate choice.

Physiological stress and culture change in a group of Filipino-Americans: a preliminary investigation

This preliminary survey evaluates the utility of physiological measures of general stress in anthropological fieldwork. The survey was conducted in a community of Filipino-Americans whose residents share similar housing conditions and low income levels but vary in ethnicity, migration status and degree of contact with Hawaii's urban culture. General stress levels are evaluated both by a subjective stress measure--the Cornell Medical Index (CMI)--and by physiological measures--twenty-four-hour excretion rates of norepinephrine, epinephrine and VMA. In addition, sociocultural data have been collected, and a culture contact index has been constructed. Preliminary results indicate that immigrants who have either low or high levels of contact with Honolulu's urban culture have lower stress levels, as measured by catecholamine excretion, than individuals with intermediate levels of contact. These differences may be due to the presence of two strategies of urban adaptation, one emphasizing isolation from the urban culture and the other emphasizing just the reverse. Those people who do not successfully utilize one of these strategies are likely to have high stress levels. Additionally, significant ethnic differences in both CMI scores and degree of culture contact are noted, but there are no ethnic differences in catecholamine excretion. This is tentative evidence for the superiority of physiological measures over subjective reports of stress in a multiethnic setting.

Catecholamine and cortisol excretion patterns in three-year-old children and their parents

Urinary catecholamine and cortisol excretion was studied in a group of three-year-olds, their mothers and fathers during night rest, one day at home and one day at hospital. The stay in the hospital, which was part of a longitudinal study of the families, induced a pronounced rise in adrenaline excretion and a moderate increase in noradrenaline excretion in relation to the at-home level. Although the catecholamine excretion in relation to body weight was much higher in the children, the magnitude of the increase at the hospital was about the same in all the family members. The adrenaline excretion was also affected by the diverse conditions at the hospital and showed, for example, a marked decrease during lunch hour. The cortisol excretion at the hospital tended to be elevated only in fathers. On the average, mothers excreted about the same amount of adrenaline as the fathers at the hospital, but significantly more noradrenaline. In earlier studies males have shown a greater adrenaline output than females during achievement-demanding situations. The findings of this study were interpreted within the context of the specific challenge that the situation represented to the mothers. The mothers also excreted more noradrenaline in the at-home condition. Catecholamine and cortisol excretion levels within family members tended to be positively correlated, but the correlations were generally low.