CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Children who experience trauma, abuse, neglect and family dysfunction are at increased risk of having heart disease in their 50s and 60s, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.
According to results of the study, people exposed to the highest levels of childhood family environment adversity were more than 50 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular disease event, such as a heart attack or stroke over a 30-year follow-up.
The longitudinal study of more than 3,600 participants is among the first to describe the trajectory of cardiovascular disease and death based on family environment ratings from young adulthood into older middle age.
The findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
According to Northwestern Medicine, children who experience this type of adversity are predisposed to higher rates of lifelong stress, smoking, anxiety, depression and sedentary lifestyle that persist into adulthood. These can lead to increased body mass index (BMI), diabetes, increased blood pressure, vascular dysfunction and inflammation.
“This population of adults is much more likely to partake in risky behaviors – for example, using food as a coping mechanism, which can lead to problems with weight and obesity,” said first author Jacob Pierce, a fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in a statement. “They also have higher rates of smoking, which has a direct link to cardiovascular disease.”
Adults who were exposed to these risk factors as children may benefit from counseling on the link between coping with stress and controlling smoking and obesity, but more research is needed, Pierce said.
“Early childhood experiences have a lasting effect on adult mental and physical well-being, and a large number of American kids continue to suffer abuse and dysfunction that will leave a toll of health and social functioning issues throughout their lives,” said senior author Joseph Feinglass, research professor of medicine and of preventive medicine at Feinberg, in a statement. “Social and economic support for young children in the United States, which is low by the standards of other developed countries, has the biggest ‘bang for the buck’ of any social program.”