Heart Disease: Constant Childhood Stress Ups The Risk

New findings published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reveal that psychological distress experienced in early life could increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease during adulthood. 

In this recent study, researchers analyzed data from a 45-year study on about 7,000 people born in a single week in Great Britain in 1958. They looked at information relating to stress and mental health from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study, which collected data on the participants at the ages of 7, 11, 16, 23, 33 and 42. They also collected data based on nine biological indicators at age 45 with information from blood samples and blood pressure measures to create a score indicating risk for heart disease and diabetes, otherwise known as cardiometabolic risk score, for each.

Findings revealed that the estimated risk for cardiometabolic disease for those who experienced persistent distress early in life through middle adulthood was higher, even when compared to counterparts who were overweight during childhood. 

"While effects of distress in early childhood on higher cardiometabolic risk in adulthood appeared to be somewhat mitigated if distress levels were lower by adulthood, they were not eradicated," the authors said. "This highlights the potentially lasting impact of childhood distress on adult physical health."

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