By Sam Blanchard Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 13:36 BST, 3 June 2019 | Updated: 13:36 BST, 3 June 2019
View
comments
Victims of racism may be more likely to get heart disease, dementia or cancer if they're stressed for a long time, according to research.
A study found enduring racial abuse has a toxic effect on the body by triggering inflammation – swelling controlled by the immune system.
Inflammation among African Americans was almost two thirds as high as it was in white European Americans.
Although scientists already knew being a victim of abuse could raise the risk of disease, they didn't understand why.
The scientists suggested racial abuse may cause long-term inflammation through genetic changes driven by ongoing stress.
The stress caused by racial abuse could cause the immune system to trigger its 'fight or flight' response and cause inflammation in the body for a long period of time, raising the risk of heart disease or cancer which have been linked to it in the past (stock image)
Researchers led by a team at University of Southern California (USC) analysed 71 people, 48 of whom were African American and 23 white.
They discovered levels of inflammatory molecules were 63 per cent higher among the African American group than in the white European Americans.
And the African American participants reported higher levels of feeling discriminated against, the research showed.
Inflammation can be caused by changes to gene activity which are a reaction to a threat from someone's living environment.
Most often it is in response to infection or injury, but it can also occur after fear or distress.
If inflammation continues for a long time without an infection or injury, white blood cells may build up in the body and start to attack other tissues or organs.
In their paper, the scientists said racial abuse could be to blame for 'a substantial fraction' of the
