Low social status 'can damage immune system'

[Animats]

This is well known. Relative social status has an influence on health. Above survival level, it's healthier to be at the top of a poor culture than at the bottom of a rich one, even if the absolute level is lower.

[sndean]

> it's healthier to be at the top of a poor culture than at the bottom of a rich one, even if the absolute level is lower

That Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect is seen to be relevant in a lot of places, including academic performance [1][2], depression, and suicide rates.

[1] http://aer.sagepub.com/content/47/2/390.abstract

[2] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-008-9075-6

[John23832]

I commented on this in a recent thread and was crucified for being a self centered sociopath... better luck to you.

[DanBC]

This article is about one of the mechanisms, which wasn't well known.

We know there's a bunch of reasons why poor people are unhealthy - more smoking, more alcohol, worse food, less exercise, more dangerous jobs, less protection in those dangerous jobs, less exercise, less access to health treatment (even if it's free).

But this study:

> The findings, in Science, had nothing to do with the unhealthy behaviours that are more common in poorer groups.

[benevol]

> Above survival level, it's healthier to be at the top of a poor culture than at the bottom of a rich one, even if the absolute level is lower.

This does not apply to Switzerland and the Nordic European countries. (It does clearly apply to the US, though.)

[nahname]

>This is well known. Relative social status has an influence on health.

You mean outside of health choices made for financial reasons? That was news to me. Simply being in bottom hurts you, even if you are doing everything else the same.

[AnthonyNagid]

Has anyone else here ever read Keith Johnstone's 'Impro'? Coming from the world of theater, Johnstone has a facinating perspective on the malleability of social status.

[drakenot]

Can you give a brief summary of the points he makes about social status? I'm curious but my reading backlog is already out of hand.

[MichaelBurge]

> The newest member nearly always ended up at the bottom of the social order and became "chronically stressed", received less grooming and more harassment from the other monkeys.

> A detailed analysis of the monkeys' blood showed 1,600 differences in the activity levels of genes involved in running the immune system between those at the top and bottom.

Could it be that the grooming procedure itself helps with the immune system? For example, cats will often lick their fur, which could bring in small quantities of pathogens to help build an immunity. If something similar happens with the monkeys, the result might not generalize to humans.

> Dr Snyder-Mackler said: "Status is always relative, but if we could flatten the slope so the differences between the highest and lowest weren't as much, or find ways to focus attention on lower social environments so they are not as 'crappy' we could mediate some of those consequences.

It's fine for the doctor to have his own political philosophy and motivations to do this study, but I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action.

Certainly, if every conceivable biological variable except for feeling like you're at the bottom is accounted for and the effect remains, that would be a very interesting result.

[tpeo]

I'm skimming through the study, thanks to Sci-Hub. The researchers did account for the impact of grooming and harassement on the immune system.

We next investigated the behavioral mechanisms that give rise to social status effects on gene expression, focusing on NK and helper T cells where the observed effects were strongest. Mediation analysis revealed that rates of received harassment—a measure of the agonistic, competitive element of social status inequality— contributed to these effects for 17.3% (helper T) and 7.8% (NK) of rank-responsive genes, respectively. However, in rhesus macaques, dominance rank also influences affiliative social interactions (15). Grooming rates mediated rank effects on gene expression levels for 17.6% of genes in helper T cells, comparable to the results for agonistic interactions. In contrast, grooming behavior was more important than harassment for rankresponsive NK genes (n = 560 genes, 33.4% of all rank-responsivegenes; chi-squared test P = 1.33 × 10e−74)(Fig. 2, D and E). A lack of positive social interactions may therefore be equally or more important than social subordination per se in shaping social status effects on gene expression, consistent with the known effects of social integration on health and mortality in both humans and other primates (16–18).

[bootload]

"I would wait for a biologist to do a more careful analysis of why those genes are being activated before using this to justify any political action."

Already done.

I refer to the "Dunedin Study", (Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study). [0] Read the summaries of how this was/is being conducted. The most revealing insight into the links between poverty, disease and mortality. People born into poverty and who increase their wealth considerably in later life, do not get healthier.

Disease (damage to the immune system) is directly related to poverty.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin_Multidisciplinary_Heal...

[1] http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz and http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/publications

[Fomite]

As with many things, this is also more complex. This article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303694650_Primate_r... suggests that higher status animal in this particular group have a higher parasite burden.

[daodedickinson]

Nietszche says to measure one's strength by the number of parasites one can support.

[RockyMcNuts]

Low status is stressful. And so is high status.

[thirstysusrando]

I've always thought about this the other way around. When I feel sick or depressed I tend to drop out of society for a bit.

[maxxxxx]

It's probably both ways. I think it can even lead to a self-reinforcing spiral.

[Lxr]

This was my initial thought too, and I haven't read the full text, but from the abstract it seems they demonstrate causality in the other direction.

[fixxer]

Being too rich can give you gout.

We all got problems.

[adiabatty]

Some people on a high-protein diet get this. The usual solution is to make sure you're eating enough fat and veggies.

[du_bing]

That's right, I have become more intent to have disease when not social at all. Beccause nowadays, it's more difficult to commuincate with people with others in real life, talking and interacting on internet can do much help.

[77pt77]

directly related:

Stress, Portrait of a Killer - Full Documentary (2008)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs

It studies this in humans and other primates.

[sctb]

We've asked you many times to comment civilly and substantively, so we've banned this account.

[known]

High social status = Highly unethical http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086

[bunchofdweebs]

But is it necessarily a bad thing? It seems like a way for nature to filter out less competitive genetic material. There are always going to be hierarchies and there will always be people at the bottom. It's an inherent part of how matter organises itself.

[cyrusshepard]

Logical fallacy. Social status ≠ genetics. Social status is unfortunately often determined by income, race, religion, and a host of other nonlogical designations.

In this experiment, social status was determined by "newness" to the group. Nothing to do with genetics.

[tpeo]

Given how seniority (older being more dominant) was supposedly the major predictor to dominance ranking, it doesn't seem as if the macaque's ranking criterion reflected any kind of genetic fitness.

[malloryerik]

Well, we also organize the systems that organize people into hierarchies, and our normative choices are just as "natural." And, to continue this kind of thinking, the mushroom clouds of the next nuclear war will also be nature's means of expression, as was slavery, and also the emancipation of slaves.

[drawnwren]

The human side of your comment aside, it isn't absolute. So it may 'filter out more competitive genetic material,' from the bottom of more competitive pools than the 'less competitive material' at the top of worse performing pools.

[Eerie]

Trolling HN is really low status, though.

[known]

Simple solution; Give a separate country to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority