Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Aspects of social environment, such as social support, size of social network, and day-to-day quality of social encounters, strongly influence health and have been implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Metabolic syndrome is considered a CVD precursor, and is characterized as a collection of symptoms: insulin resistance, central adiposity, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia. Although the metabolic syndrome and CVD tend to manifest in mid- to later-life, the processes that produce these diseases begin as early as the first few decades of life. Previous research suggests that adolescent girls who experience more day-to-day negative social encounters have worsening metabolic health (an index of the metabolic syndrome) over a 2 year period, and adolescent girls who experience fewer negative social encounters improved in metabolic health over the same period. This trend persisted even after considering alternative explanations, such as age, ethnicity, oral contraceptive use, socioeconomic status, and health behaviours such as smoking and physical activity. It is possible that negative social interactions have a direct impact on physiological health: poor interpersonal interactions have been associated with increased systemic inflammation. In turn, systemic inflammation has been shown to drive insulin resistance and development of the other metabolic syndrome symptoms. In order to better understand the developmental origins of the metabolic syndrome, and thereby CVD, and to determine a mechanism responsible for the above relationship, our research proposes to assess whether more day-to-day negative encounters are associated with changes in systemic inflammation, and whether these changes in inflammation are further associated with changes in metabolic health. This may be another way that aspects of our psychosocial environment can 'get under the skin' to directly contribute to development of disease in later life.