Over a three year period more than 17,000 California adults completed confidential questionnaires regarding their childhood experiences and their current state of health. The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest studies of childhood abuse and neglect and the consequences to mental and physical health later in life. The primary adverse childhood experiences were:
---- Physical or emotional neglect
---- Physical, emotional or sexual abuse
---- Parental mental illness
---- Parental substance dependence
---- Parental incarceration
---- Parental separation or divorce
---- Domestic violence
Two-thirds of participants disclosed at least one ACE. One in five
disclosed three or more ACEs. The main findings of the study were that the more
ACEs were reported, the greater in adulthood was the likelihood of:
Alcoholism
and alcohol abuse
Chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease
Depression
Fetal death
Health-related
quality of life
Illicit drug
use
Ischemic
heart disease
Liver
disease
Poor work
performance
Financial
stress
Risk for
intimate partner violence
Multiple
sexual partners
Sexually
transmitted diseases
Smoking
Suicide
attempts
Unintended
pregnancies
Early
initiation of smoking
Early
initiation of sexual activity
Adolescent
pregnancy
Risk for
sexual violence
Poor academic
achievement
American
pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a leader in the field of childhood medicine. Her TED Talk
video “How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime” (BELOW) has been
viewed more than three million times. Her bio states she is “a leader
in the movement to transform how we respond to early childhood adversity and
the resulting toxic stress that dramatically impacts our health and longevity.
By revealing the science behind childhood adversity, she offers a new way to
understand the adverse events that affect all of us throughout our lifetimes.
“Burke Harris speaks to how we
can disrupt this destructive cycle through interventions that help retrain the
brain and body, foster resilience, and help children, families and adults live
healthier, happier lies. A pediatrician, mom and the founder/CEO of the Center
for Youth Wellness, Burke Harris has brought these scientific discoveries and
her new approach to audiences at the Mayo Clinic, American Academy of
Pediatrics and Google Zeitgeist.”
During her TED Talk she delves into the specifics on how abusive
parenting damages children:
“We now understand better than we
ever have before how exposure to early adversity affects the developing brains
and bodies of children. It affects areas like the nucleus accumbens, the
pleasure and reward center of the brain that is implicated in substance
dependence. It inhibits the prefrontal
cortex, which is necessary for impulse control, an executive function, a
critical area for learning. And on MRI scans, we see measurable differences
in the amygdala, the brain's fear response center.
“So there are real neurologic reasons why folks are exposed to high
doses of adversity are more likely to engage in high-risk behavior. And that's
important to know. But it turns out that even if you don't engage in any
high-risk behavior, you're still more likely to develop heart disease or
cancer. The reason for this has to do with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
axis, the brain's and body's stress response system that governs our
fight-or-flight response. How does it work?
“Well, imagine you're walking in the forest, and you see a bear.
Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to your pituitary, which sends a
signal to your adrenal gland that says, release stress hormones adrenaline,
cortisol. And so your heart starts to pound. Your pupils dilate. Your airways
open up. And you are ready to either fight that bear or run from the bear. And
that is wonderful if you're in a forest, and there's a bear. But the problem is what happens when the
bear comes home every night. And this system is activated over and over and
over again.
“And it goes from being adaptive or lifesaving to maladaptive or
health-damaging. Children are especially sensitive to this repeated stress activation
because their brains and bodies are just developing. High doses of adversity
not only affect brain structure and function. They affect the developing immune
system, developing hormonal systems and even the way our DNA is read and
transcribed.”
Sources
Nadine Burke Harris, “How Does Trauma Affect A Child’s DNA?” TED Radio Hour, 25 August, 2017 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=545092982
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, “About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study” https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/about.html
Photo: http://queesel.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/what-is-distress.jpg
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
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