As per a study published in the Journal Heart, it has been observed that adults who are exposed to maltreatment in their childhood are very much prone to contracting Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD) in their adulthood. Also, women are more likely to be exposed to this threat more than men if they had disturbed childhood.
Highlights of the Study:
Prior to this, it was known that childhood maltreatment can be associated with various physical and mental issues, including cardiovascular diseases but there was nothing to understand the gender-based discrimination of such occurrences. The salient points of this study were:
- An online questionnaire was filled by more than 1.5 lakh participants from the UK Biobank in order to reach the present inference.
- As per the data received, emotional neglect was the most common type of childhood maltreatment (22.5 per cent) followed by physical abuse in men (21.1 per cent) and emotional abuse in women (17.9 per cent).
- It was also revealed that all types of childhood maltreatment were more prevalent in women except for physical abuse.
- Women have also been found more prone to more types of childhood maltreatment as 4.6 per cent women experienced four or more types of maltreatment as compared to 2.7 per cent of men. Younger participants also reported a higher number of maltreatment types, including women.
- All types were maltreatment can be related to a higher risk of CVD in both men and women, with a stronger association in the latter.
What is UK Bio-bank?
It is a central database maintained in the United Kingdom for the purpose of investigation concerning the relation between genetic predisposition and environmental exposure and the development of diseases. It was established in 2007 and is based in Manchester, UK. It has around 500000 volunteers within the age group of 40-69 years.