A Harvard study found that even if an individual suffers little stress in adulthood, the person may still exhibit cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders and similar illnesses if the individual went through stress during childhood. The research followed the data of around 6,700 children from a 1958 British Birth Cohort Study to determine their status and progress as adults.
Study author and postdoctoral research fellow in social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ashley Winning, explains: "We know that the childhood period is really important for setting up trajectories of health and well-being."
The 1958 research implemented a series of six assessments across the period between age 7 and 42. The subjects were categorised into the following psychological distress profiles: no distress, childhood only, adulthood only and persistent distress.
At ages 7, 11 and 16 the participants were assessed by their schoolteachers through the Bristols Social Adjustment Guide. With the 146-question guide, teachers assessed the participants for symptoms or incidences misbehaviour, hostility, anxiety, depression, restlessness and other related issues. At ages 23, 33 and 42 the participants self-reported on their mental condition and health. The study says: "Then, at age 45, participants were tested for cholesterol, heart rate, blood pressure and other characteristics to gauge the state of their immune system, along with their heart and metabolic health."
The Harvard researchers then analysed the nine biomarkers on immune, cardiovascular and metabolic functions used on the participants. The researchers indicated: "...psychological distress at any point in the life course is associated with higher cardiometabolic risk. This is the first study to suggest that even if distress appears to remit by adulthood, heightened risk of cardiometabolic disease remains."
The National Institute of Mental Health provides these effects of stress on general health and well-being: "Some people experience mainly digestive symptoms, while others may have headaches, sleeplessness, depressed mood, anger and irritability. People under chronic stress are prone to more frequent and severe viral infections, such as the flu or common cold, and vaccines, such as the flu shot, are less effective for them."
For the Harvard researchers, their findings provide a direction toward targeting stress as part of efforts on disease prevention. These findings on childhood stress have been published in the Journal of The American College of Cardiology.
