Peter Friberg was the principal applicant for a project that has received a total of SEK 4.6 million from a joint initiative by Formas, Forte, Vinnova and the Swedish Research Council. The project is exploring the correlation between stress and cardiovascular disease in adolescents and young adults.
Q: What does this grant mean to your team?
Peter Friberg: It will contribute a great deal to the long-term stability of our research, particularly over the next three years, and it is decisive to our ability to perform longitudinal studies.
Q: What questions are you looking to address?
PF: Our goal is to identify physical and psychological predictors of future health and disease, especially the risk of cardiovascular problems, among young people. Much of our emphasis is on stress and its relationship to the development of obesity and hypertension. We are also interested in the capacity of young people to rebound from health problems, as well as other mechanisms that protect them from developing cardiovascular disease and psychological difficulties as adults.
Q: What are your research methods?
PF: Besides designing questionnaires, we take blood and saliva samples in order to analyze inflammatory biomarkers of acute stress. The subjects are 7th graders at schools that reflect various social and economic brackets in Swedish society. Five schools in the Gothenburg area are participating at the moment, but we want to include the entire Västra Götaland region as soon as possible.
Q: Why is learning about the correlation between stress, obesity and hypertension so important?
PF: Our previous studies have shown that many young people, particularly women and girls, experience a high level of stress and that both obesity and hypertension are quite common these days. Those findings have led us to ask about the impact of early stress on the remainder of a person’s life. The role of stress among adults in precipitating heart attacks is well established. Given the paucity of longitudinal studies, the significance of early stress and its repercussions for future health represent a relatively new field of research.
Q: How might your results end up being applied?
PF: It goes without saying that we hope to identify and predict both risk and projective factors for future health and disease. We need to examine these factors in the light of growing social and economic disparities, as well as shifting demographics, throughout Swedish society. One important question revolves around the interventions that are needed to ensure good health for everyone. There is little doubt that different approaches are required depending on the individuals and demographic groups involved. Our objective is to proceed from solid scientific evidence to propose preventive methods and interventions that will prove effective over the long run.