AHA Statement Details Link Between Childhood Adversity and CVD Risk

The American Heart Association (AHA) has released a statement on the association between enduring adversity (including bullying and sexual abuse) and the later risk of obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease during adulthood.
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The AHA sought to summarize available evidence and to identify gaps in the research in order to serve as a guide to future research into potential interventions to mitigate the effects of childhood adversity on cardiometabolic disease. The statement also outlines pathways that link adversity to cardiometabolic health.

“Given that childhood adversities affect cardiometabolic health and multiple health domains across the life course, interventions that ameliorate these initial upstream exposures may be more appropriate than interventions remediating downstream cardiovascular disease risk factor effects later in life,” they wrote.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Suglia SF, Koenen KC, Boynton-Jarrett R, et al. Childhood and adolescent adversity and cardiometabolic outcomes: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association [published online December 18, 2017]. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000536.