Parental Warmth and Care In Early Life Is Good for Later Health

A recent research has found that lack of parental affection and abuse during childhood can impact a child emotionally as well as physically.

Researchers from the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA found that the lack of parent's warmth in childhood can cause cardiovascular ailments, metabolic syndromes and other health related problems.

The team discovered a biological link between the physical and emotional health of a child and lack of parental warmth in early life.

"Our findings suggest that there may be a way to reduce the impact abuse has, at least in terms of physical health," Judith E. Carroll, the lead author of the study and a research scientist at UCLA, said in a news release. "If the child has love from parental figures they may be more protected from the impact of abuse on adult biological risk for health problems than those who don't have that loving adult in their life."

There also have been evidences of childhood abuse inducing psychological harm and affecting physical health of the child.

The study called CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) was conducted on 756 adults, 18 biomarkers of health risk, such as heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormone, blood sugar regulation, cholesterol, etc. were examined in each individual. A summary index called 'allostatic load' was produced using these markers. Participants having higher range in these markers were at higher biological risk for disease.

The partakers also gave a self-report scale through a survey called Risky Families Questionnaire. With the help of this data, the researchers found out about childhood abuse details of the participants and linked it with multisystem health risks.

People who received more warmth and care from their parents in their childhood were lesser prone to diseases and vice-versa.

"Our findings highlight the extent to which these early childhood experiences are associated with evidence of increased biological risks across nearly all of the body's major regulatory systems" said Teresa Seeman, professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine and of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, and the paper's senior author.

"If we only look at individual biological parameters such as blood pressure or cholesterol, we would miss the fact that the early childhood experiences are related to a much broader set of biological risk indicators - suggesting the range of health risks that may result from such adverse childhood exposures".

The study unveiled that parental warmth and care toward the child cuts the harmful impact of toxic childhood stress that affects the physical and mental health of the child.

"It is our hope that this will encourage public policy support for early interventions," Carroll said.

"If we intervene early in risky families and at places that provide care for children by educating and training parents, teachers, and other caregivers in how to provide a loving and nurturing environment, we may also improve the long term health trajectories of those kids," Carrol concluded.