Commencement services for medicine, dentistry planned for Sunday ...

16 Thursday, May 19, 2005
TODAY
Making music can reverse stress on genomic level
Got stress? It might help to
pick up a guitar or kazoo.
A study recently published in
part by Loma Linda University
scientists Lee Berk, DrPH, and
James Westengard, MT(ASCP),
shows for the first time that playing
a musical instrument can help
reverse the human stress response.
Dr. Berk and Mr. Westengard
were two of seven scientists
involved in the study, which was
published in the February issue of
the international research journal
Medical Science Monitor.
These findings not only shed
new light on the value of active
music participation, but they also
extend our understanding of individualized
human biological stress
responses on an unprecedented
level, according to Dr. Berk, who is
an associate professor in the School
of Public Health and associate
research professor in the School of
Medicine. Mr. Westengard is a
research specialist in the School of
Medicine.
The research team also
included researchers from the
Mind-Body Wellness Center at
Meadville Medical Center in
Pennsylvania and the Foster City,
California, genomic company
Applied Biosystems, which developed
the original technology that
led to the successful mapping of
the human genome.
During the first hour of the
novel two-phase study which led
to the paper, researchers employed
a frustrating puzzle assembly exercise
to induce stress in 32 adult
volunteers who did not consider
themselves musical.
In the second hour, subjects
were randomly divided into three
groups. One subset of individuals
continued the stressful activity,
while another was allowed to relax.
The third group participated
in a group-based recreational
music making keyboard program
called the Clavinova Connection,
which focuses on nurturing, support,
and nonverbal creative
expression, as opposed to mastery
and performance.
Before and after each phase,
the researchers sampled subjects’
blood for 45 known genomic
markers that literally turn on or off
biological responses closely associated
with health challenges that
range from heart disease to cancer
and from diabetes to inflammatory
diseases.
The biological responses differed
considerably from person to
person.
“While we were challenged at
first by such a wide range of
responses, closer examination of
the data revealed what we eventually
termed individualized geno-
SPH maternal-child health program hones its
curriculum through community advisory board
The term “think tank” often
conjures up thoughts of high politics.
But sometimes it’s a completely
different concept, as in the
case of the community advisory
board for the School of Public
Health’s maternal-child health
major, which convened last month
for its biannual meeting.
The board serves as a think
tank for keeping the maternalchild
health curriculum up to the
minute, explains Barbara
Anderson, DrPH, program coordinator
for maternal-child health and
chair of the health promotion and
education department in the
School of Public Health.
“They help us think about how
to shape our curriculum to meet
the health needs of the community,”
Dr. Anderson says.
At its April 26 meeting, the
board focused on “best practices
for emerging needs in maternalchild
health.” The discussion
specifically considered four issues
that are relevant to maternal-child
health curriculum:
1) perinatal health of mother
and baby,
2) childhood obesity,
3) childhood exposure to
Internet pornography, and
4) inter-generational addiction/incarceration
of women.
Members on the board come
from organizations ranging from
the San Bernardino County
Sexual Assault Services to Knotts
Group Home in Colton to the
Redlands Police Department. The
board has met every two years
since the maternal and children
health major started in 1994.
“It’s a wonderful way to get
people in the community to join
forces with us,” Dr. Anderson says.
Kiti Freier, PhD (left), associate professor of psychology, School of Science and Technology;
and Susanne Montgomery, PhD, professor of health promotion and education, School of
Public Health, participate in the community advisory board discussion.
mic stress induction signatures,”
Dr. Berk says. “We were actually
measuring biological diversity in
action.”
These results shed light on how
people exposed to the same stressor
react biologically and psychologically
in their own unique ways.
A combination of factors including
one’s health, genetic predisposition,
conditioning, and a host of situational
and psychosocial variables
ultimately determine each individual’s
distinctive stress responses.
(While the precise biological links
between stress and disease remain
elusive, it isn’t surprising that
under the same chronic stressful
conditions, one person might
experience a heart attack while
another may develop high blood
pressure.)
Yet beyond stress-induction,
the research shows that the stressreduction
impact was far greater
for individuals participating in
their first group keyboard lesson
than for subjects who simply
relaxed.
No statistically significant
reversals of initial stress-induced
gene expression were noted in
individuals who continued the
puzzle exercise during the second
hour.
In contrast, six genes in the
relaxation group reversed during
phase two of the study, compared
with 19 genes in the music group.
In other words, the preliminary
findings show that actively partici-
Volume Volume 18, Number 18, Number 4
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T O M A K E M A N W H O L E
Volume 18, Number 9
May 19, 2005
Executive editor W. Augustus Cheatham, MSW
Editors Waldena Gaede
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Advertising coordinator Dustin R. Jones
CORRESPONDENTS
Nicole R. Cheatham
Loma Linda University Medical Center–East Campus
School of Pharmacy
Dustin R. Jones
School of Nursing
Faculty of Religion
Heather Reifsnyder
School of Public Health
School of Allied Health Professions
Preston Clarke Smith
School of Medicine
Loma Linda University Medical Center
Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital
Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center
Patricia K. Thio
Loma Linda University Behavioral Medicine Center
Graduate School
School of Science and Technology
Nancy L. Yuen
School of Dentistry
pating in the group music program
more effectively reversed individualized
genomic stress induction
signatures than did simply
relaxing.
“With ongoing research, recreational
music-making could potentially
serve as a rational stressreduction
activity along with other
lifestyle strategies that include
healthy nutrition and exercise,”
Dr. Berk says.
This research shows for the first
time that DNA-based switches regulating
components of the human
stress response can be modulated,
according to Muhammad A. Sharaf,
PhD, senior staff scientist at
Applied Biosystems.
“From a genomic perspective,
the far-reaching potential of inducing
and subsequently reversing
gene expression in this manner
introduces new and exciting possibilities
for testing and tailoring
specific treatments to an individual,
rather than a group,” Dr.
Sharaf says.
The researchers recognize that
using a person’s individualized
genomic stress induction signature
for personalizing health care interventions
sounds like a futuristic
endeavor.
Dr. Berk suggests this study
represents a mere glimpse of the
potential that exists for health care
scientists and practitioners to
improve quality of life by better
understanding the complexity of
the human stress response.
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