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• Posted September 17, 2024

Childhood Trauma Can Raise Health Risks for a Lifetime

Deprivation, neglect and abuse during childhood can increase a person’s long-term risk of health problems, a new study warns.

“Stress is implicated in nine of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States today,” said senior researcher Dr. George Slavich, director of the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research. “It’s about time we take that statistic seriously and begin screening for stress in all pediatric and adult clinics nationwide.”

For the study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, researchers analyzed data on more than 2,100 participants in a long-range study funded by the National Institute on Aging.

The team looked at different childhood traumas reported by the participants -- financial distress, abuse, neglect, frequent moves, living apart from parents and receiving welfare.

The participants also provided samples that allowed researchers to calculate 25 different disease biomarkers, and said whether they’d been diagnosed with 20 different major health conditions.

Results showed that the risk of health problems in men and women increased with the amount of childhood stress they endured.

Researchers also found that the effects of stress differed between men and women.

Childhood stress tended to have greater effects on the metabolism of women than men, results show.

On the other hand, emotional abuse and neglect appear to have greater health effects on men than women when it comes to blood disorders, mental and behavioral health issues, and thyroid problems.

The findings underscore the need to integrate stress history into a person’s medical record, to better track their future risk of health problems, Slavich said.

“Most people who have experienced significant stress or early-life trauma never get assessed,” Slavich said in a UCLA news release. “These findings highlight the critical importance of screening for stress in clinical settings. They also move us beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and toward a precision medicine approach based on patients’ sex and specific stress profile.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the long-term health effects of childhood stress.

SOURCE: UCLA Health, news release, Sept. 17, 2024