Childhood stress can reduce life span and care-giving activities

[caption id="attachment_9010" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Children in floods in Pakistan"][/caption]

"Childhood adversity casts a very long shadow"say researchers, a shadow that can last through old age."

What happens to us as children can have life-long implications., a new study reports.

Emotional abuse of children, for example, can bring additional stress when the adult is required to be a caregiver of others.

“What happens in childhood really matters when it comes to your immune
response in the latter part of your life,” explained Janice
Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Ohio State
University.   Her study was presented at the annual meeting of the
American Psychological Association in San Diego.

Some children who are abused or suffer adverse experiences may their lifespan literally shortened by seven to 15 years.

Research looked
at 132 healthy older adults averaging 70 years old. Forty-four percent
of them served as primary caregivers for family members suffering from
dementia, while 56 percent were non-caregivers.

The
researchers analyzed blood samples and took a series of surveys of
people to determine if they had suffered childhood abuse or neglect or
experienced adverse conditions in childhood such as the loss of a
parent, serious marital problems between parents, mental illness or
alcoholism within their familly.

Researchers
found there was a significant physical differences in some of the DNA
patterns and processes that are associated with aging and age-related
diseases.

Caregivers
who had been abused as children showed higher levels of what is called
TNF, a specific cell process,  than non-abused caregivers or controls,
whether they were abused or not.

Higher levels of depression were also reported as a consequence of childhood abuse.

Earlier
research by the research team has shown that caregivers suffer
considerable stress and have higher rates of depression and poorer
health than those people who are not caregivers.  They report higher
rates of depression and poorer health, their wounds heal more slowly,
they respond poorly to influenza and pneumonia vaccines, they suffer
more inflammation and have higher mortality rates.

The
inflammation caused by high levels of IL-6 and TNF have been linked to
health problems such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, type 2
diabetes, osteoporosis, cancers and Alzheimer’s disease, they said.

Kiecolt-Glaser
said that the study’s findings showed that “differences may be
measurable in older adults, and of sufficient magnitude to be
discernible even beyond the effects of a notably chronic stressor –
dementia caregiving.”