Children who have had a difficult childhood with problems, such as Serious illness or death in the family, poverty, neglect, or dysfunctional and stressful family relationshipsare at increased risk of developing heart or blood vessel disease in later life.
This has been seen in research published in the “European Heart Journal” which is the largest study to date on the relationship between childhood adversity and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
The work has carried out a follow-up of almost 1.3 million childrenborn between January 1980 and December 2001, up to December 31, 2018. During this period, 4,118 developed cardiovascular disease between their 16th birthday and the end of 2018, the year in which the oldest were 38 years old.
The researchers noted an intriguing fact: Compared with adults who had childhoods without adversity, those who did had an approximately 60% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease. “Specifically, the risk was especially higher in the case of those who had suffered serious diseases, such as cancer, heart or lung disease, or a death in the family,” explains the study’s lead author, Naja Hulvej Rod, head of epidemiology. from the Department of Public Health of the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). In absolute numbers, «this equates to 10-18 new CVD cases per 100,000 person-years. For comparison, the average CVD incidence rate among a 30-year-old is approximately 50 CVD cases per 100,000 person-years.”
The investigators used data from the DANLIFE cohort. They identified 1,263,013 children who were alive and living in Denmark up to their 16th birthday and who had not been diagnosed with CVD or congenital heart disease during that time.
They divided them into five groups based on their childhood between the ages of 0 and 15: 1) those who experienced little adversity during childhood, 2) material deprivation in the first years of life (for example, poverty and unemployment in the family during the early years), 3) persistent deprivation (material deprivation experienced until adolescence), 4) loss or threat of loss (high rates of serious illness or death among parents or siblings) , and 5) high adversity (encompassing exposure to any or all of the above types of adversity, particularly dysfunctional and stressful family relationships, experienced on average each year during adolescence).
After adjusting their analyzes to account for factors that could also increase CVD risk, such as age, maternal age at birth, parental origin, and any parental heart, blood vessel, or metabolic disease. In the supplementary analyses, they also adjusted for gestational age and the educational level of their parents.
The risk was higher among people who had had a serious illness or death in the family
They excluded people whose parents had a disease related to the heart or metabolism, such as diabetes or heart disease, that could predispose their children to developing these conditions.
They found that there was little difference in the risk of developing CVD between the 2,195 men and 1,923 women in the study. The risk was higher among people who had had a serious illness or death in the family.
“The association we observed between childhood adversity and CVD in early adulthood may be partly explained by behaviors that can affect health, such as alcohol use, smoking, and physical inactivity. Childhood is a sensitive period characterized by rapid cognitive and physical development; Frequent and chronic exposure to adversity in childhood may influence the development of the physiological response to stress, and this may provide an important explanation for the mechanisms underlying these findings,” says Rod.