SAN DIEGO -- Growing up in a troubled home can cut your life short or lead to a host of health problems later on, according to studies presented over the weekend at the American Psychological Association meeting.
In several major presentations, researchers outlined evidence that weathering difficulties as a child can set your health on the wrong course decades later.
"Our latest research shows that those reporting multiple adversities could shorten their life span by seven to 15 years," says Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a health psychologist at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. "What we have is clear evidence that adverse childhood experience may have lasting, measurable consequences." Such events include losing a parent, being abused or witnessing parental marital strife, which can lead to inflammation and cell aging much earlier than those who haven't had such strife, she says.
The research methods
Researchers analyzed depression and childhood trauma in a sample of 132 healthy older adults to see how negative emotions and stressful experiences affect biochemical markers of stress such as telomeres -- the ends of strands of DNA. Shorter telomeres have been linked with aging, age-related diseases and death.
Participants completed questionnaires on depression; past child abuse or neglect; a parent's death during childhood; witnessing severe marital problems; growing up with a family member suffering from mental illness or alcohol abuse; or lacking a close relationship with at least one adult.
"We found that childhood adversity was associated with shorter telomeres and increased levels of inflammation," Kiecolt-Glaser says. "Inflammation over time can lead to cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers."
In the sample, 32% reported some form of abuse -- physical, emotional or sexual -- during childhood; 68% reported no such abuse; 44% reported no childhood adversities; 33% reported one; and 24% reported multiple adversities. Those who had two or more adversities had significantly shorter telomere length than those who reported none. The differences researchers measured "could thus translate into a seven- to 15-year difference in life span," the study concludes.
University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologist Seth Pollak also presented his work on childhood adversity, focusing on hormones and brain imaging among those who experienced child abuse, neglect or poverty.
"We know there are all sorts of problems associated with adults who have been abused as children," he says. "What we don't know is why. What is happening early in life that is changing things in the developing brain that is leading to these social and health and interpersonal problems later in the life?
"What we're finding is there's something about the early experience of being abused as a child that appears to change the way our brains recognize and learn about emotion."
Effects of economic status
Such troubled childhoods can harm later health and, in particular, lead to heart disease, says Karen Matthews, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, who also presented research on childhood adversity at the convention.
Heightened reactivity to adverse childhood experiences, such as lower socioeconomic status, isolation and negative events, can affect the development of disease, she says.
In her latest study, 212 teens ages 14-16 were monitored over three years to gauge the effect of poverty on sensitivity to stress and early signs of heart disease. Findings showed that years later, those from poor economic households had stiffer arteries and higher blood pressure as well as more thickening of their carotid artery walls.
The adolescent years are a critical time when stress has more impact, Matthews says, perhaps "because of their hormonal changes and their sensitivity to peer rejection, acceptance and how they interpret others' attitudes toward themselves," she says.
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