Stress is more deadly for obese people than for lean ones

Researchers found that overweight people repeatedly placed in a stressful situation exhibited increasing amounts of interleukin-6, an inflmmatory marker, in their saliva.

This cytokine is secreted by T cells and macrophages to stimulate immune response, e.g. during infection and after trauma, especially burns or other tissue damage leading to inflammation. Additionally, interleukin-6 has been associated with a number of conditions for which obesity itself creates an increased risk, including atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, cancer and fatty liver disease.

The experiment consisted in placing subjects in stressful situations, including a very unfriendly job interview and a difficult oral math exercise. They then took saliva samples to see how the stress affected the release of inflammatory mediators.

Researchers observed that lean people started out with lower interleukin-6 levels than obese people, but all participants exhibited similar amounts of biochemical response to stress. However, when the stress situation were repeated the following day, obese people doubled the concentrations while lean people's response was similar to the previous day. Interestingly, on the second day, intrerleukin-6 concentrations in saliva correlated with body mass index.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-obese-stress-may-be-even-more-deadly/