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Psychological distress during childhood contributes to cardiometabolic risk in adulthood
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Psychological distress during childhood may predict cardiometabolic risk in adulthood, according to data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“We found that people who did not experience high levels of psychological distress in childhood or adulthood, as measured by symptoms of mental disorders, had significantly lower cardiometabolic risk than those who had ever experienced high levels of stress,” Ashley Winning, ScD, MPH, of the department of social and behavioral sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Cardiology Today.
The researchers reviewed data collected from 6,714 participants in the ongoing, longitudinal British Birth Cohort Study. Participants underwent six assessments of psychological distress at ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33 and 42 years, along with measurement of nine biomarkers indicating CV, immune and metabolic system function at age 45 years. Distress was identified through either internalizing symptoms, such as depression or anxiety, or externalizing symptoms, such as inattention or impulsiveness.
Approximately half (49.3%) of participants indicated no significant psychological distress. Persistent distress, occurring during both childhood (ages 16 or younger) and adulthood, was observed in 10.7% of patients, while 25.1% reported distress only during childhood and 15% had distress only in adulthood.
Compared with participants with no psychological distress, researchers observed higher cardiometabolic risk among those who experienced psychological distress during childhood (β = 0.11; P < .0002) or adulthood (β = 0.09 P < .007), as well as persistent distress (β = 0.26; P < .0001), after adjustment for sex and childhood covariates. Additional adjustment for covariates during adulthood eliminated the significance of the link between cardiometabolic risk and psychological distress in adulthood, but not distress during childhood (β = 0.06; P = .04) or persistent psychological distress (β = 0.15; P = .0001).
Winning noted that childhood psychological distress may motivate harmful behaviors, such as cigarette smoking and physical activity, or reduce educational and occupational achievement. It may also increase activation of stress-related biological systems.
“Given there are sensitive periods for establishing behavior, childhood and adolescent distress may be especially influential,” she said. “If stress response systems are altered in childhood, it may make people more reactive to stress and more prone to its cumulative effects over time. An important next step will be to evaluate systematically whether reducing psychological distress in childhood indeed improves subsequent CMR, as well as which types of interventions are most effective, and at what ages.” – by Trish Shea, MA
Disclosure: Winning reports receiving support from the Julius B. Richmond Fellowship at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child and the Martha May Eliot Fund at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. One researcher reports receiving support from the Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship. The other researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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