Researchers are building a case that being stuck at the bottom of the social pecking order can be hazardous to your health. While popular belief holds that poorer, less-educated people have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease because they take worse care of themselves, some studies, including one published last month in Science, suggest that low status can have a direct, toxic effect on physical well-being.
“There’s something about the mere experience of being high versus low on the social totem pole that changes the way our bodies work,” said Steven Cole, a neuro-immunologist at UCLA who was not part of this latest study. This counterintuitive finding could transform the medical community’s understanding of why some people get sick, and what to do about it.
