Caregiving as a Natural Stressor in Coronary Heart Disease (CAREGIVER)

The burden of caregiving for an ill relative has been shown to interact with existing comorbidities to increase risk of several health outcomes including metabolic syndrome and blood pressure reactivity. The CAREGIVER study was developed to compare cardiometabolic risk factors in caregivers and controls. These risk factors include physiologic measures, psychologic measures, neighborhood characteristics, and genetic and genomic factors. DNA and plasma were collected and used for examination of cardiometabolic and stress biomarkers, genotyping and methylation analysis. ]]>
The cases are caregivers of a loved one suffering with Alzheimer's Disease or other dementia. Most caregivers had been active caregivers for at least 3 months or more. They were recruited using flyers or advertisements in the local media and community outreach efforts. Noncaregiver controls were recruited by asking caregivers to nominate two to five friends living in their neighborhood similar with respect to demographic factors (i.e. gender, age and race). Individuals experiencing any acute major medical or psychiatric disorders were excluded from the study. All individuals gave informed consent. ]]>
The data and sample biorepository developed for the CAREGIVER study has been under continual use as part of an ongoing program project grant, P01HL036587. During the most recent funding cycle, we have studied interactions between genotype and psychosocial stress and the genomic manifestation of that interaction through differential methylation. ]]>