Health Enhancement And Resilience Training — HEART  

Aging Clinical Trial

Official title: The Effect of a Stress Reduction Program Using Mindfulness Techniques on Markers of Cellular Stress and Aging

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this research study is to examine whether a stress reduction intervention can improve health, mood and biological markers of cellular stress and aging in a group of chronically-stressed maternal caregivers and healthy maternal controls.

Clinical Trial Description

This stress-reduction intervention was added into an ongoing observational study in May of 2013. The parent study is a prospective cohort study of the effects of chronic stress in a group of maternal caregivers with children on the autism spectrum and healthy controls whose children have no diagnosis. Study participants are being invited to enroll in a 12-week stress reduction course based on the principles of mindfulness. They will attend four six-hour workshops and participate in 12 weekly hour-long web video conferencing calls to reinforce what is taught in the workshops.

At the beginning and the end of the intervention, they complete self-report measures of psychological well-being and give saliva samples. Since the women are also participating in the longitudinal study, we have other before and after data for them. These include psycho-social measures, body measurements, psycho-physiology measurements, cognitive tests, actigraphy (for sleep), as well as saliva (for hormones), hair (for hormones) and blood (for telomeres, telomerase, gene expression, circulating hormones, inflammation and oxidative stress). ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Aging
• Stress
• Well-being

• NCT number: NCT01959126
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of California, San Francisco
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: May 2013
• Completion date: November 2015