The effects of childhood abuse and lack of parental affection can last a lifetime, taking a toll both emotionally and physically, reveals a new study.
A new UCLA-led study for the first time examines the effects of abuse and lack of parental affection across the body’s entire regulatory system.
The study, published found a strong biological link for how negative early life experiences affect physical health and can even lead to cardiovascular disease.
However, it’s not all bad news. ‘Our findings suggest that there may be a way to reduce the impact abuse has, at least in terms of physical health,” said Judith E. Carroll, a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology (USA) at UCLA, and the study’s lead author.
‘If the child has love from parental figures they may be more protected from the impact of abuse on adult biological risk for health problems than those who don’t have that loving adult in their life.’
In the study, the researchers found a significant interaction of abuse and warmth, so that individuals reporting low levels of love and affection and high levels of abuse in childhood had the highest multisystem risk in adulthood.
‘Our findings highlight the extent to which these early childhood experiences are associated with evidence of increased biological risks across nearly all of the body’s major regulatory systems,’ said Teresa Seeman, professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine and of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, and the paper’s senior author.
‘If we only look at individual biological parameters such as blood pressure or cholesterol, we would miss the fact that the early childhood experiences are related to a much broader set of biological risk indicators – suggesting the range of health risks that may result from such adverse childhood exposures.’
The findings suggest that parental warmth and affection protect one against the harmful effects of toxic childhood stress.
‘If we intervene early in risky families and at places that provide care for children by educating and training parents, teachers, and other caregivers in how to provide a loving and nurturing environment, we may also improve the long term health trajectories of those kids.’
