One way childhood trauma leads to poorer health for women

Adversity linked to having births earlier and outside marriage

September 17, 2019

Science Daily/Ohio State University

Researchers have long known that childhood trauma is linked to poorer health for women at midlife. A new study shows one important reason why.

The national study of more than 3,000 women is the first to find that those who experienced childhood trauma were more likely than others to have their first child both earlier in life and outside of marriage -- and that those factors were associated with poorer health later in life.

The findings have implications for public programs to prevent teen pregnancy, said Kristi Williams, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

These results suggest that early trauma -- such as the death of a parent, physical abuse or emotional neglect -- may affect young people's decision-making in ways that they can't entirely control.

"It's easy to tell teens that they shouldn't have kids before marriage, but the message won't be effective if they haven't developed the capacity to do that because of trauma they experienced in childhood," Williams said.

"It may be necessary to do different kinds of interventions and do them when children are younger."

Williams conducted the study with Brian Karl Finch of the University of Southern California. Their results were published today (Sept. 17, 2019) in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Early childhood trauma is "shockingly" common in the United States, the researchers said in the study. One national study conducted between 1995 and 1997 found that only 36 percent of respondents reported having no such adverse childhood experiences.

Other research has shown that childhood trauma is strongly associated with multiple health risks, including cancer, diabetes, stroke and early death, Williams said. Much of this work has focused on how early adversity may have biological and neurological effects that would lead to worse health throughout life.

"But there hasn't been any attention given to how childhood adversity may affect social and developmental processes in adolescence and young adulthood -- factors that we know are also strong predictors of later health," she said.

One of those factors in women is the timing and context of first birth.

Data for this new study came from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which includes a representative sample of people who were aged 14 to 22 in 1979. The NLSY is run by Ohio State's Center for Human Resource Research.

Participants were interviewed every year through 1994 and once every two years since. The final sample for this study included 3,278 women.

Each participant reported whether she experienced one or more of six adverse childhood experiences before age 18: emotional neglect, physical abuse, alcoholism in the home, mental illness in the home, death of a biological parent and parental absence.

The researchers examined data on how old each participant was when she first gave birth and whether she was married, cohabiting or neither at the time.

Finally, participants rated their health at or near age 40.

Findings showed that each additional childhood trauma experienced by the participants was associated with earlier age at first birth and a greater probability for a first birth during adolescence or young adulthood compared to later (age 25 to 39).

In addition, each additional trauma was associated with a 24 percent increase in the probability of being unmarried and not cohabiting at first birth compared to the likelihood that they were married when their first child was born.

The researchers then conducted statistical tests that showed early and non-marital births were a key reason why children who experienced trauma were more likely to report poorer health at midlife.

"It is the idea of 'chains of risk' -- one thing leads to another," Williams said.

"Childhood trauma leads to social and biological risks that lead to early and nonmarital birth which can lead to health problems later in life."

The findings also cast doubt on the notion that childbearing decisions are the result only of the culture in which children grow up, she said.

Some policymakers have claimed that some people don't value marriage enough, and if they were just encouraged not to have kids until after they're married, they would be better off, Williams said.

"You can promote this 'success sequence' -- go to college, get a job, get married and have a child -- exactly in that order. But the reason some people don't do that isn't just cultural, it is structural," Williams said.

"When people experience traumas early in life, it makes it less likely that they will be able to make those positive choices."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190917115436.htm

For kids who face trauma, good neighbors or teachers can save their longterm health

September 16, 2019

Science Daily/Brigham Young University

New research shows just how important positive childhood experiences are for our long-term health -- especially for those who experience significant adversity as a child.

Studies over the past 20 years have found a correlation between the number of adverse childhood events (such as death or divorce) and worse health outcomes later in life. A new study from professor Ali Crandall and other Brigham Young University coauthors discovered that positive childhood experiences -- like having good neighbors, regular meals or a caregiver you feel safe with -- have the potential to negate harmful health effects caused by adverse childhood experiences.

"If your child has experienced trauma and you're worried about the long-term impact it could have on them, these findings show that the positive experiences in childhood lead to better adult physical and mental health, no matter what they have faced," said Crandall, assistant professor of public health at BYU.

Specifically, the study found that even when an individual had four or more adverse childhood experiences (called ACEs), having a high number of advantageous childhood experiences (Counter-ACEs) lessened the negative effect of ACEs on adult health. This is significant because the landmark 1998 ACEs study concluded that having four or more ACEs in childhood greatly increases negative health outcomes, including higher BMI, smoking rates, depression and chronic health conditions.

BYU study participants reported the number of ACEs and Counter-ACEs they experienced in childhood. ACEs include abuse, abandonment, having a family member in jail, alcoholism, mental illness, addiction, divorce or death. The full list of Counter-ACEs includes having good friends and neighbors, beliefs that provide comfort, liking school, teachers who care, having a caregiver whom you feel safe with, opportunities to have fun, feeling comfortable with yourself and a predictable home routine like regular meals and bedtimes.

Accoring to the study findings, published recently in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, nearly 75 percent of participants had at least one adverse childhood experience, while the average amount of ACEs was 2.67 per person. The average positive experience score was 8.15, with 39 percent of people having experienced all 10 of those Counter-ACEs.

Participants also reported their current health through a variety of physical measures -- like BMI, fruit and vegetable consumption, physical exercise, sleep difficulties and if they smoked daily -- as well as their cognitive and mental health through executive functioning abilities, perceived stress, depression, internal locus of control, gratitude, forgiveness of self and challenging situations and familial closeness. Interestingly, researchers also found that the absence of Counter-ACEs led to poor adult health regardless of the number of ACEs.

"As bad as ACEs may be, the absence of these positive childhood experiences and relationships may actually be more detrimental to lifelong health so we need more focus on increasing the positive," Crandall said.

While many of the adverse childhood experiences in this study are affected by a child's family situation, Crandall said that "other adults in a child's life that are not the parent, like extended family, teachers, neighbors, friends and youth leaders all help to increase the number of counter ACEs and boosts lifelong health."

Crandall believes that increasing counter-ACES in the home is the easiest place to start and is working to educate the community about how to do this in conjunction with United Way. BYU professors Brianna Magnusson, Len Novilla, Carl Hanson and Michael Barnes were coauthors on the study.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190916144004.htm

Increasing number of adolescents receive depression diagnosis

September 11, 2019

Science Daily/University of Turku

The proportion of young people in Finland diagnosed with depression in specialised services is increasing, showed a study based on an extensive set of national data. An increasing number of adolescents seek and get help, but the increase in service use burdens specialised services. The study was conducted by the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku in Finland.

The proportion of individuals who received a diagnosis by the age of 15 in specialised services increased 53% among boys and 65 % among girls born between 1994 and 2000 compared to young people born between 1987 and 1993.

According to the lead author, Dr Svetlana Filatova from the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry, the results do not imply an increase in depression among adolescents.

"The results can most probably be explained by an increase in service use. An increasing number of depressed adolescents get help at an early stage which is positive," says Filatova.

There has been an increase in the use of psychiatric services among adolescents in the past 20 years both in Finland and worldwide.

"The increase in service use can reflect better identification of depression and a more positive attitude to mental health," Filatova continues.

Examining Temporal Changes Identifies Challenges in Healthcare

Knowledge of time trends for depression is important for disease prevention and healthcare planning. However, few studies until now have examined these for the incidence and cumulative incidence of diagnosed depression from childhood to early adulthood.

According to Docent David Gyllenberg from the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry, it is important to monitor changes in the incidence of depression to timely address challenges faced by mental health services.

"The rapid increase in the number of children and adolescents diagnosed with depression poses a burden for specialised mental health services that need to provide evidence-based treatment for a growing patient population," Gyllenberg stresses.

The data consisted of 1,240,062 persons including 37,682 individuals with a depression diagnosis who had visited specialised care at least once. 10% of females and 5% of males who had been followed up to the age of 25 had been diagnosed with depression.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190911112959.htm

Susceptibility to disease develops during childhood

April 29, 2019

Science Daily/University of Zurich

Traumatized children and children who develop multiple allergies tend to suffer in adulthood from chronic inflammatory diseases and psychiatric disorders. Researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne have demonstrated this in a study in which they identified five classes of early immune-system programming.

The human immune system forms during childhood: The "hygiene hypothesis" provides a widely regarded perspective on this. It postulates that improved hygiene, changes in agriculture and urbanization have caused our immune systems to come in contact with certain microbes less often or later in life than before. It is presumed that these developments have adversely resulted in an increased incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases, allergies and mental disorders such as depression.

Taking the hygiene hypothesis as a starting point, an interdisciplinary group of researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne analyzed epidemiological data from a cohort of almost 5,000 people who were born in the mid-20th century. They concentrated on the co-incidence of allergies, viral and bacterial diseases, and psychosocial stress in childhood. On the basis of early morbidity patterns, the scientists identified five different groups of people that they characterized by biomarkers (white blood cell counts, inflammatory markers) and, in a further step, by their association patterns with chronic inflammatory diseases and psychiatric disorders during adulthood.

One in five people have a very resistant immune system

 The main group, which comprised almost 60% of the total cohort analyzed, possessed an ordinary, "neutral" immune system. Their disease burden during childhood was comparatively low. Childhood disease burden was even lower for the second-largest group comprising more than 20% of the total cohort: that group exhibited an especially resistant, "resilient" immune system. Even symptoms of common childhood diseases like measles, mumps or rubella, which were not preventable in the mid-20th century, appeared far less frequently in this group than in the "neutral" group.

The "resilient" group is juxtaposed by three smaller groups. The "atopic" group (7% of total cohort) exhibited incidents of multiple allergic diseases. The roughly same-sized "mixed" group (approximately 9%) was characterized by single allergic disorders such as drug allergies, for example, and by bacterial and rash-inducing childhood diseases like scarlet fever, pertussis or rubella. The smallest of the five groups (approximately 5%) comprised people who were traumatized in childhood. They were more susceptible to allergic diseases, but responded comparatively resiliently to common childhood viral diseases.

Hygiene hypothesis taken a step further

Comparative analyses revealed that the "neutral" and "resilient" groups were larger among people with earlier birth years than they were among individuals with later birth years. The exact opposite was true for the "atopic" group, which increased the later the birth year. "Our study thus corroborates the hygiene hypothesis," lead author Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross from the University of Zurich says, "but at the same time goes beyond it."

Differences between the groups also manifested themselves in later health. People belonging to the "resilient" group were better protected in adulthood not just against chronic inflammatory diseases, but also against mental disorders. Members of the "atopic" and "mixed" groups, on the other hand, were susceptible to elevated somatic and psychiatric health risks in later age. The "traumatized" group likewise exhibited a greater predisposition to psychiatric illness in adulthood as well as a higher risk of suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases, the latter only among women, however. "The findings of the study indicate that the human immune system acts like a switchboard between somatic and psychic processes," Ajdacic-Gross explains. "They help us understand why many people who do not have a history of psychosocial trauma get afflicted by mental disorders and, conversely, why traumatized people show a predisposition to chronic inflammatory diseases."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190429134130.htm

Is anxiety in childhood and adolescence linked to later alcohol use disorders?

March 20, 2019

Science Daily/Wiley

In an Addiction analysis of relevant published studies, investigators found some evidence for a positive association between anxiety during childhood and adolescence with later alcohol use disorders.

Approximately 43 percent of associations were positive, meaning that anxiety was associated with a higher likelihood of later alcohol use disorders; however, 11 percent of associations were negative, with anxiety being associated with a lower likelihood of later alcohol use disorders. Approximately 30 percent of associations were equivocal and 15 percent were unclassifiable based on the information reported.

The authors of the analysis noted that it is important to establish which anxious individuals consume more alcohol and develop alcohol use disorders in order to develop targeted interventions.

"The evidence from prospective cohort studies is suggestive but not conclusive of a positive association between anxiety during childhood and adolescence and subsequent alcohol use disorder," said lead author Maddy Dyer, of the University of Bristol, in the UK. "Associations of anxiety with later drinking frequency or quantity and binge drinking were inconsistent. Further research is needed to understand why there are differences in associations for consumption levels versus problematic use, and to determine which individuals with anxiety develop alcohol problems."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320102030.htm

Childhood depression may increase risk of heart disease by teen years

January 30, 2014

Science Daily/University of South Florida (USF Health)

Children with depression are more likely to be obese, smoke and be inactive, and can show the effects of heart disease as early as their teen years, according to a newly published.

The research, by Rottenberg and his colleagues at Washington University and the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that depression may increase the risk of heart problems later in life. The researchers also observed higher rates of heart disease in the parents of adolescents that had been depressed as children. The research is published online in Psychosomatic Medicineand will be included in the medical journal's February 2014 issue.

"Given that the parents in this sample were relatively young, we were quite surprised to find that the parents of the affected adolescents were reporting a history of heart attacks and other serious events," Rottenberg explained.

Cardiologists and mental health professionals have long known a link exists between depression and heart disease. Depressed adults are more likely to suffer a heart attack, and if they do have a heart attack, it's more likely to be fatal.

However it was unclear when the association between clinical depression and cardiac risk develops, or how early in life the association can be detected. These findings suggest improved prevention and treatment of childhood depression could reduce adult cardiovascular disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women- accounting for one in every four deaths in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the study, Rottenberg and his colleagues followed up on Hungarian children who had participated in a 2004 study of the genetics of depression. The researchers compared heart disease risk factors -- such as smoking, obesity, physical activity level, and parental history -- across three categories of adolescents.

The investigators surveyed more than 200 children with a history of clinical depression, as well as about 200 of their siblings who have never suffered from depression. They also gathered information from more than 150 unrelated children of the same age and gender with no history of depression.

Rottenberg plans to conduct additional research in order to understand why depression early in life may put people at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Further studies planned with the Hungarian group will also examine whether any early warning signs of heart disease are present as these adolescents move into young adulthood.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130164454.htm