Rocca Walter A, Gazzuola Rocca Liliana, Smith Carin Y, Esterov Dmitry, Kapoor Ekta, St Sauver Jennifer L, Stewart Elizabeth A, Kantarci Kejal
Division of Epidemiology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
Commun Med (Lond). 2025 Jul 10;5(1):287. doi: 10.1038/s43856-025-00961-0.
The impact of early-life traumatic experiences on late-life morbidity, or chronic conditions, remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that traumatic adverse childhood experiences, such as physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual abuse, experienced during childhood or early adulthood are associated with a higher rate of morbidity later in life in women.
We studied 1026 women aged 21-45 years randomly selected from the general population in Olmsted County, Minnesota and used the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical records-linkage system to measure the rate of development of 18 chronic conditions. The women had a median age of 41.0 years at inclusion in the study and were followed historically for a median of 21.0 years.
Here we show that women who experienced 2 or more adverse childhood experiences have higher incidence of 10 of the 18 chronic conditions considered separately and an accelerated accumulation of chronic conditions measured as a morbidity score compared to women who did not experience any. In addition, women exposed to abuse in childhood or early adulthood have accelerated accumulation of morbidity. We exclude the possible confounding effect of socioeconomic status and explore a series of possible mediation events or characteristics. We also discuss several possible biological and social or behavioral mechanisms underlying these associations.
We are reporting new evidence that adverse childhood experiences and abuse in childhood or early adulthood have multiple deleterious effects on late-life morbidity. Our findings indicate the importance of protecting children and young adults from abuse and other adverse events.
早年创伤经历对晚年发病率或慢性疾病的影响仍不明确。我们检验了这样一个假设，即童年期或成年早期经历的身体、言语、情感或性虐待等创伤性童年不良经历与女性晚年更高的发病率相关。
我们研究了从明尼苏达州奥尔姆斯特德县普通人群中随机选取的1026名年龄在21 - 45岁之间的女性，并使用罗切斯特流行病学项目医疗记录链接系统来衡量18种慢性病的发病几率。这些女性纳入研究时的中位年龄为41.0岁，历史随访中位时间为21.0年。
我们发现，与未经历任何不良童年经历的女性相比，经历过2次或更多不良童年经历的女性，在单独考虑的18种慢性病中有10种发病率更高，且以发病评分衡量的慢性病累积速度更快。此外，童年期或成年早期遭受过虐待的女性发病累积速度更快。我们排除了社会经济地位可能的混杂效应，并探究了一系列可能的中介事件或特征。我们还讨论了这些关联背后的几种可能的生物学、社会或行为机制。
我们报告了新的证据，即不良童年经历以及童年期或成年早期的虐待对晚年发病率有多种有害影响。我们的研究结果表明保护儿童和年轻人免受虐待及其他不良事件影响的重要性。
