Department of Community Medicine, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
PLoS One. 2011;6(5):e19675. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019675. Epub 2011 May 16.
In observational studies from western countries childhood emotional adversity is usually associated with adult cardiovascular disease. These findings are open to contextual biases making evidence from other settings valuable. We examined the association of a potential marker of childhood emotional adversity with cardiovascular disease risk factors in a developing country.
We used multivariable regression in cross-sectional analysis of older (≥50 years) men (n = 7,885) and women (n = 20,886) from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study (2003-8) to examine the adjusted association of early life (<18 years) parental death (none, one or two deaths) with blood pressure, fasting glucose, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR) and white blood cell count (WBC). We used seated height and delayed 10-word recall to assess content validity of parental death as a measure of childhood emotional adversity. We also examined whether associations varied by sex.
Early life parental death was associated with shorter age- and sex-adjusted seated height. It was also associated with lower 10-word recall score adjusted for age, sex, socio-economic position, leg length and lifestyle. Similarly, adjusted early life parental death was not associated with blood pressure, fasting glucose, LDL-cholesterol or HDL-cholesterol but was associated with lower BMI (-0.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.62 to -0.19 for 2 compared with no early life parental deaths) and triglycerides. Associations varied by sex for WHR and WBC. Among men only, early life parental death was associated with lower WHR (-0.008, 95% CI -0.015 to -0.001) and WBC (-0.35 10(9)/L, 95% CI -0.56 to -0.13).
In a non-western population from a developing country, childhood emotional adversity was negatively associated with some cardiovascular risk factors, particularly among men. Our study suggests that some of the observed associations in western populations may be socially rather than biologically based or may be population specific.
在来自西方国家的观察性研究中，儿童时期的情绪逆境通常与成年人的心血管疾病有关。这些发现可能存在背景偏差，因此来自其他环境的证据很有价值。我们研究了在一个发展中国家，儿童时期情绪逆境的潜在标志物与心血管疾病危险因素之间的关系。
我们使用多变量回归方法，对来自广州生物银行队列研究（2003-2008 年）的年龄在 50 岁及以上的男性（n=7885）和女性（n=20886）进行横断面分析，以检验早期（<18 岁）父母死亡（无、1 位或 2 位死亡）与血压、空腹血糖、LDL 胆固醇、HDL 胆固醇、甘油三酯、体重指数（BMI）、腰臀比（WHR）和白细胞计数（WBC）之间的调整关联。我们使用坐姿身高和延迟 10 字回忆来评估父母死亡作为儿童情绪逆境衡量指标的内容效度。我们还检验了关联是否因性别而异。
儿童时期父母死亡与年龄和性别调整后的坐姿身高较短有关。它还与经过年龄、性别、社会经济地位、腿长和生活方式调整后的 10 字回忆得分较低有关。同样，经过调整的早期父母死亡与血压、空腹血糖、LDL 胆固醇或 HDL 胆固醇无关，但与 BMI 较低有关（与无早期父母死亡相比，2 例死亡者 BMI 降低 0.40，95%置信区间（CI）为-0.62 至-0.19）和甘油三酯。WHR 和 WBC 的关联因性别而异。仅在男性中，早期父母死亡与较低的 WHR（-0.008，95%CI -0.015 至-0.001）和 WBC（-0.35×10(9)/L，95%CI -0.56 至-0.13）有关。
在来自发展中国家的非西方人群中，儿童时期的情绪逆境与一些心血管危险因素呈负相关，尤其是在男性中。我们的研究表明，在西方人群中观察到的一些关联可能是基于社会因素而不是生物学因素，或者可能是特定于人群的。
