Trauma in childhood increases risk of chronic conditions, research suggests

People who have experienced traumatic or stressful events during childhood have a higher risk of developing multiple long-term health conditions in adulthood, research suggests.

A study by the University of Dundee found each additional traumatic or stressful event experienced during childhood increases the odds of someone suffering from multiple chronic conditions in later life by nearly 13%.

An adverse childhood experience (ACE) is defined as a potentially traumatic or stressful event that occurs before the age of 18.

They can include a wide variety of negative experiences, including abuse, neglect, household dysfunction and other forms of stress such as bullying, famine or war.

ACEs have previously been associated with increased risk of many different poor health and social outcomes in adult life.

However, their cumulative effect on the likelihood of someone suffering from simultaneous chronic health conditions, also known as multimorbidity, during adulthood is still unclear.

To establish the impact of ACEs on long-term health conditions, a team in the university’s School of Medicine, led by Dr Dhan Senaratne, conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 studies involving more than 370,000 people.

Dr Senaratne said: “As global populations continue to age, we are seeing an increase of people with multiple long-term health conditions.

“The natural implication is to think that is a problem that affects adults in mid or later life, but our research suggests that the origins may occur decades earlier in childhood.

“Data reveals that the more types of adversity you experience during your childhood, the more likely you are to have multiple long-term health conditions, or multimorbidity, when you are an adult.

“The statistical analysis revealed that for every childhood adversity you experience, the likelihood of you having multimorbidity in later life is 12.9% higher.”

The paper, The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Multimorbidity: A Systematic Review And Meta Analysis, has been published in the BMC Medicine journal.