A new study found that psychological distress during childhood, even if things turned rosy during one’s adult years, can lead to a greater chance of suffering from heart disease and diabetes later in life.
The study, published Sept. 28 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that subjects with continuing distress throughout their lives had the highest cardiometabolic risk score – a measure of heart disease and diabetes risk – relative to those with low distress levels in childhood through adulthood.
According to lead author Ashley Winning of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, their study adds to the mounting proof of the link between psychological distress and cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and that “effects may be initiated relatively early in life.”
Winning added that while childhood distress was somehow mitigated if there were lower stress levels during one’s older years, it was not eradicated and had “potentially lasting impact” on one’s physical health in adulthood.
Wining and her colleagues analyzed data from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study, a 45-year research that followed about 7,000 individuals born in a single week in Great Britain.
The long-running research collected stress and mental health information about the participants at ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33 and 42, as well as collected data at age 45 to measure markers of metabolic and cardiovascular health and immune function.
Winning’s team then investigated the relationship between stress and the risk of various chronic illnesses.
It increasingly shows that adversity in children’s social environment raises the likelihood of high distress levels, thus the need for early prevention and intervention strategies, added Winning.
E. Alison Holman, associate professor in the Program of Nursing Science at the University of California, Irvine, said in the accompanying editorial that it may not help to manage known cardiovascular risks such as smoking and obesity without addressing these underlying risk factors.
Holman, who suggests patient-centric motivational interviewing and kinder patient communication approaches, warned that failing to address these underlying risks may exacerbate patients’ distress, “especially if they feel stuck or unable to make the recommended changes.”
Research psychologist Aric Prather said the large number of people tracked by the study for decades makes it worth paying attention to, specifically in ways that early-life experiences influence wellness.
Stress, for example, may influence the switching on and off of genes and may induce other physiological effects.
Photo: Susana Fernandez | Flickr
