Stress May Cause Children Asthma Later In Life
A study suggests that children who suffer physical abuse, death of a parent or other childhood adversity and are anxious or depressed are at increased risk of developing asthma in adulthood.
Dr. Kate M. Scott told Reuters Health the study was particularly interesting because although doctors know that people with asthma are more likely to also experience some anxiety disorders and possibly depression, it is usually thought that these mental disorders occur as a consequence of asthma.
She also said psychological influences like stress or anxiety can exacerbate asthma, but it was rather novel to find suggestive evidence that they may increase the risk of its initial development.
"Our research suggests that psychosocial stressors like childhood adversity and mental disorders occurring earlier in life actually increase the risk of the later development of asthma," said Scott, who is with the Department of Psychological Medicine, at the University of Otago School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Wellington, New Zealand.
Researchers gathered information from over 18,000 adults in the Americas, Europe and Asia who were interviewed between 2001 and 2004 as part of the World Mental Health surveys. The findings were published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Childhood adversity predicted adult-onset asthma, with increasing risk correlating with a greater number of adversities suffered in childhood, according to Scott and colleagues.
These adversities included physical or sexual abuse, neglect, parental death, parent divorce, other parental loss, parental mental disorder, parental substance use, parental criminal behavior, family violence, and family economic adversity.
Scott and colleagues also found anxiety and depressive disorders during childhood strongly predicted the development of asthma later in life. The presence of either childhood adversity and childhood anxiety or both during depression also increased the risk of a child suffering from asthma as an adult.
The childhood adversity and anxiety and depression ties held up in analyses that factored in the impact of smoking on the risk of asthma, suggesting that the relationship between mental disorders and subsequent asthma onset is independent of smoking.
Doctors still don’t know whether childhood adversity and anxiety and depression actually cause adult asthma, however there are some plausible biological mechanisms to support a causal link.
Scott said chronic stress and mental disorders are known to be associated with deleterious changes in stress hormone pathways and in immune responses, leading to inflammation.
He also pointed out other research that has shown that the developing stress and immune systems in children are particularly susceptible to disruption in early life.
"This, in conjunction with genetic and environmental factors, may be the basis for the association between stress in early life and later development of medical conditions like asthma."
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