GENE-EXPRESSION PROFILES

Research has found that people who derive their happiness from helping others have strong antibody genes, while people who get their kicks from self-gratification can suffer from low antiviral and antibody expression. The study by UCLA, a public research University in Los Angeles, California, is the first of its kind to examine how positive psychology impacts human gene expression.

People deemed ‘do-gooders’ have high levels of ‘eudaimonic’ well-being. Researchers say they derive their happiness from a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life and found favourable gene patterns and expression profiles in their immune cells. Those studied from this happiness group had low levels of inflammatory gene expression and strong antibody and antiviral genes.

The findings by UCLA, first published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also conclude that individuals who have high levels of ‘hedonic well-being’, i.e. the type of happiness that comes from consuming goods and self-gratification, showed the opposite. This group of people showed a high propensity towards inflammation and weak antibody and antiviral genes.

The research, led by Steven Cole, a UCLA professor of medicine and Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, has taken more than a decade to complete.

The scientists have examined how the human genome responds to fear, stress, misery and other negative mental states. Their focus was on how human genes might respond to aspects of positive psychology in this study. They studied the biological implications of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through some 21,000 genes.

Previous research found immune cells shifting in baseline gene expression during times of stress, fear and uncertainty. The shift is generally characterised by an increased expression of genes involved in inflammation and much less so of those involved in antiviral and antibody functions.

Professor Cole believes the response probably evolved to help human immune systems cope with the changing nature of microbial threats associated with changing social and environmental conditions at the time. Those threats include bacterial infection from wounds produced by fighting and the increased risk of viral infections as people lived closer together and became more sociable.

Professor Cole said:

… In contemporary society and our very different environment, chronic activation by social or symbolic threats can promote inflammation and cause cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and other diseases and can impair resistance to viral infections.

Researches from the present study drew blood samples from 80 healthy adults who were assessed for hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, as well as negative psychological traits and behavioural factors.

Professor Cole’s team used the gene-expression profile to map the potentially distinct biological effects of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being.

The study found people with eudaimonic well-being showed favourable gene-expression profiles in their immune cells and those with hedonic well-being showed an adverse gene-expression profile.

Interestingly, though, Professor Cole also said:

… People with high levels of hedonic well-being didn’t feel any worse than those with high levels of eudaimonic well-being.

… Both seemed to have the same high levels of positive emotion. However, their genomes were responding very differently even though their emotional states were similarly positive.

… What this study tells us is that doing good and feeling good have very different effects on the human genome, even though they generate similar levels of positive emotion.

… Apparently, the human genome is much more sensitive to different ways of achieving happiness than are conscious minds.