Genetic Variation, Stress, and Physiological Stress Response in Adults With Food Allergy or Celiac Disease

Persistently high chronic stress can lead to maladaptive psychological, behavioral, and physiological stress responses and poor mental and physical health, highlighting the importance of identifying individuals at increased risk. Chronic health condition diagnosis and genetics are 2 characteristics that can influence stress, stress response, and health outcomes.

Food allergy (FA) and celiac disease (CD) require constant vigilance in daily life and can lead to increased stress. The purpose of this exploratory analysis was to examine the association of variants in selected stress-related genes with stress exposures, stress, clinical measures of physiological stress response, and mental health symptoms in adults with and without FA or CD.

We compared stress exposures, symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and stress, BMI, and waist-hip ratio between cases and controls. We analyzed the association of SNPs in genes with known or hypothesized associations with stress-related measures in 124 cases and 124 matched controls: CRHBP (rs7718461, rs10474485), CRHR1 (rs242940) and OXTR (rs2268490). For this exploratory study, p-values ≤ 0.10 were considered suggestive.

For cases and controls, rs7718461 was associated with stress symptoms, rs2268490 with symptoms of stress and PTSD, and rs242940 with symptoms of stress, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Further analyses found that stress-related outcomes in individuals with FA or CD may be influenced by SNP genotype.

Given these suggestive findings, larger prospective studies should examine similar relationships in individuals with other chronic health conditions, incorporating factors such as environmental exposures, individual experiences, and epigenetic modifications.