TLDR (or at least what I took from it): Too much adversity produces stress that is bad for the body in that it ages your immune system much faster than it should.
The idea is that the constant stress imparted to black people by institutional and systemic racism leads to poorer health outcomes.
This doesn't disprove that white people don't also have worse health outcomes with increased stress, but the focus for many researchers is in targeting health disparities and social inequalities. It just so happens that race plays a big role in that.
Success is harder for black folks. If they don't leave the poorer areas they grew up in, did they really succeed? There's an increase risk of being a victim if you are richer than most in a poorer area. if they leave, they are socially isolated from their comfort zone and friends, labeled a sell out, have to conform to social norms of the new environment. In both cases friends and relatives constantly beg for money. The worry of losing it all is very real. Yes, life is harder for blacks in America. A black African that succeedes in Africa doesn't have as much stress.
You'd probably also be interested in "The short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace", a young man who went from inner city poverty, to a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale university, to being killed in a drug robbery.
I assumed, on reading, that they were suggesting it was due to some societal factors (e.g. racism) that makes it harder for black people, but maybe I misinterpreted it.
Well, even as a poor white, fighting poverty etc, it's different than dodging bullets in your neighborhood (as was often the case, in the time of the study), plus, the dominant race of society seeing you as criminal/inferior/threatening.
If I understood the article correctly, the effect was originally associated with African Americans, but has recently been extended to others in similar "striving" conditions.
It is slightly more than adversity, as anyone can lose someone important or their job, suffer from brain trauma, etc. Upward mobility implies understanding and navigating through different sets of social rules and this can be extremely stressful and implies what sociologists call anomie.
The sociological explanation of this phenomenon is almost a hundred years old. You can read it here: Merton, Robert K. (October 1938). "Social Structure and Anomie". American Sociological Review. 3 (5): 672–682.
Sorry for the paywall, but you "hackers" know how to circumvent it, right?
".. characterized by a rapid change of the standards or values of societies (often erroneously referred to as normlessness), and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness. He believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for better or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life."
This can certainly be said to describe how many are feeling with the current election outcome. Thanks for bringing this up.
That was exactly what was going through my mind. Trump basically fought and won against the GOP establishment, the democrats, media and the pollsters and made it. He is still at war with the media and the world at large still hates him. He seems pretty unperturbed though.
If you start with a massive inheritance, to some extent that will diminish the stress. Bathing in gold-plated bathtubs also cuts stress, and grabbing felines because you can.
One could argue that a black American would have great difficulty taking advantage of these stress reliefs.
He would be dead by now if he did coke because coke accelerates cellular mechanisms for aging
For example, cocaine and alcohol addiction are associated with robust alterations in sleep architecture, including disturbances in slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement (REM), which has implications for several age-related diseases, since sleep contributes to the homeostatic regulation of the neuroendocrine and immune systems.
This is a certainty. Based on the damage cocaine causes, had Trump been a long-term user of cocaine, he'd have likely died 10 or 20 years ago. I say long-term, because based on his status in the late 1970s and 1980s, it would be far more likely that were he a user, he'd have started back then and continued to use. Very unlikely he would still be walking around and performing as well as he is at 70.
First, except for Obama, the first picture is a nicely choreographed headshot (make up?) and the second is a candid photo with no attempt to make the person look good.
Second, except for Bush'88, all of those Presidents were in office for 8 years. I don't know about you, but I'm not surprised a person in their later years looks older almost a decade later.
My Mom was never President, but she looks much older when she was 60 vs. 52.