Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213;
Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jun 20;114(25):6515-6520. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1700610114. Epub 2017 Jun 5.
Exposure to parental separation or divorce during childhood has been associated with an increased risk for physical morbidity during adulthood. Here we tested the hypothesis that this association is primarily attributable to separated parents who do not communicate with each other. We also examined whether early exposure to separated parents in conflict is associated with greater viral-induced inflammatory response in adulthood and in turn with increased susceptibility to viral-induced upper respiratory disease. After assessment of their parents' relationship during their childhood, 201 healthy volunteers, age 18-55 y, were quarantined, experimentally exposed to a virus that causes a common cold, and monitored for 5 d for the development of a respiratory illness. Monitoring included daily assessments of viral-specific infection, objective markers of illness, and local production of proinflammatory cytokines. Adults whose parents lived apart and never spoke during their childhood were more than three times as likely to develop a cold when exposed to the upper respiratory virus than adults from intact families. Conversely, individuals whose parents were separated but communicated with each other showed no increase in risk compared with those from intact families. These differences persisted in analyses adjusted for potentially confounding variables (demographics, current socioeconomic status, body mass index, season, baseline immunity to the challenge virus, affectivity, and childhood socioeconomic status). Mediation analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that greater susceptibility to respiratory infectious illness among the offspring of noncommunicating parents was attributable to a greater local proinflammatory response to infection.
儿童时期父母离异或分居与成年后患身体疾病的风险增加有关。在这里，我们检验了这样一个假设，即这种关联主要归因于不与对方沟通的离异父母。我们还研究了在冲突中早期接触离异父母是否与成年后更大的病毒引起的炎症反应有关，以及随之而来的对病毒引起的上呼吸道疾病的易感性增加有关。在评估了他们童年时期父母的关系后，201 名年龄在 18-55 岁的健康志愿者被隔离，进行了实验性的病毒暴露，以引起普通感冒，并监测了 5 天，以观察上呼吸道疾病的发展。监测包括每天评估病毒特异性感染、疾病的客观标志物和促炎细胞因子的局部产生。与来自完整家庭的成年人相比，当暴露于上呼吸道病毒时，那些父母在童年时期分开且从未交谈过的成年人患感冒的可能性要高出三倍以上。相反，那些父母分开但彼此沟通的人，与来自完整家庭的人相比，风险没有增加。在对潜在混杂变量（人口统计学、当前社会经济地位、体重指数、季节、对挑战病毒的基线免疫力、情感和儿童社会经济地位）进行调整的分析中，这些差异仍然存在。中介分析与假设一致，即不沟通的父母的子女更容易感染呼吸道传染病，这归因于对感染的局部促炎反应更大。
