Greater negative affective responsivity to daily stressors is positively related to urinary norepinephrine excretion in middle-aged adults

Despite mounting evidence that greater affective responsivity to naturally occurring daily stressors is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), few studies have examined dysregulation of the sympathetic nervous system as a potential mechanism. We hypothesized that greater affective responsivity to daily stressful events would be related to increased urinary catecholamine excretion. Daily stress processes (8-day daily diary) were assessed in 715 middle-aged adults (56 ± 11 yr; 57% female) from the Midlife in the United States Study. Urinary norepinephrine and epinephrine concentrations were also measured (24 h; normalized to creatinine). Multilevel modeling was used to calculate negative and positive affective responsivity (i.e., the slope of the within-person differences in negative and positive affect on stressor days compared with stressor-free days). Analyses controlled for relevant covariates (e.g., sex, age, affect on stressor-free days, etc.). On stressor days, negative affect increased (0.1 ± 0.2 stressor-free days vs. 0.3 ± 0.4 au stressor days; <i>P</i> < 0.0001) and positive affect decreased (2.8 ± 0.7 stressor-free days vs. 2.6 ± 0.8 au stressor days; <i>P</i> < 0.0001). Greater negative affectivity responsivity to daily stressors was related to increased urinary norepinephrine (<i>B</i> = 0.42, SE = 0.14, <i>P</i> = 0.003), but not epinephrine (<i>P</i> = 0.142), excretion. Positive affective responsivity to daily stressors was not related to either urinary norepinephrine (<i>B</i> = -0.33, SE = 0.29, <i>P</i> = 0.24) or epinephrine (<i>P</i> = 0.626) excretion. Heightened negative affective responsivity to daily stressors was associated with greater urinary norepinephrine excretion, suggesting that sympathetic overactivation may contribute to the link between emotional vulnerability to daily stressors and increased CVD risk.<b>NEW & NOTEWORTHY</b> Few studies have examined sympathetic dysregulation as a potential mechanism linking affective responsivity to daily stressors to future cardiovascular diseases. Using a large national sample, our findings show that amplified negative affective responsivity to daily stressors is related to increased urinary norepinephrine excretion independent of the frequency of stressor occurrence. These data suggest that chronic sympathetic overactivation may contribute to the link between emotional vulnerability to daily stressors and increased risk of future cardiovascular comorbidities.