Apparently, Financial Stress Can Be Extremely Detrimental to Our Health, Study Finds

Money on your mind lately and not in the good kind? Maybe worry about it a little less. As it turns out, money troubles can actually lead to severely worse health, new research confirms.

In a study published in the Brain, Behavior and Immunity, a group of researchers at University College London concluded that financial stress was among one of the major elements affecting someone's overall health. This is defined as "the perception that they may not have enough financial resources to meet their future needs." And the stress it produces in the long-term is almost on par with the level of stress of bereavement, separation, or divorce.

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Participants were separated into three groups, labeled as low risk to health, moderate risk, and high risk. The group used a latent profile analysis, which takes into account clusters of biomarker activity. Researchers looked into blood concentrations of four biomarkers in 4,934 people aged 50 and over, taking into account innate immune response and hormones involved in stress response. From there, they looked into the varying degrees of stressful circumstances that affected a person's classification.

“We found that financial stress was most detrimental to biological health, although more research is needed to establish this for certain," said the study's lead author, PhD candidate Odessa S. Hamilton, UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care.

Hamilton adds: "This may be because this form of stress can invade many aspects of our lives, leading to family conflict, social exclusion, and even hunger or homelessness.”

Exposure to these types of stressful circumstances was linked to a 61-percent increase in the likelihood of a participant joining the high-risk group. Financial strain made individuals 59-percent more likely to join the said group. Yikes.