Apples for Health- Child's toxic stress affects later health

Child's toxic stress affects later health

NEW YORK, June 4 (UPI) -- Confronting the causes of child adversity early -- before and shortly after birth -- may be a promising way to improve adult health, U.S. researchers suggest.

"Improving the developmental trajectory of a child by helping the parents and improving the home environment is probably the single most important thing we can do for the health of that child," study co-author Bruce McEwen of The Rockefeller University in New York said in a statement.

"Adverse childhood experience is one of the largest contributors to such chronic health problems as diabetes and obesity, psychiatric disorders, drug abuse -- almost every major public health challenge we face."

In the report, McEwen and co-authors distinguish between "positive" and "tolerable" stress, which -- with the support of adults -- help the body and brain learn to cope with brief situations of adversity, and "toxic" stress, which can disrupt brain architecture as well as other body systems and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment well into adulthood.

Some risk factors for toxic stress include extreme poverty, recurrent abuse, chronic neglect, severe maternal depression and family violence.

The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.