Abused girls may have higher risk of heart disease, stroke as adults

www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/aha-agm110311.php

Public release date: 13-Nov-2011
Contact: AHA News Media Office

Sexually and physically abused girls may have higher risks for heart attacks, heart disease and strokes as adults, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011.

In the study, compared to women who weren't molested or raped as children or teens, women who reported:

Repeated episodes of forced sex in childhood or adolescence had a 62 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease as adults.
Severe physical abuse in childhood or adolescence was associated with a 45 percent increased risk of cardiovascular events.

Mild to moderate physical or sexual abuse was not associated with increased risk.

"The single biggest factor explaining the link between severe child abuse and adult cardiovascular disease was the tendency of abused girls to have gained more weight throughout adolescence and into adulthood,' said Janet Rich-Edwards, Sc.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass.

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Associations of severe abuse were stronger for stroke than for heart attack. Risk factors such as adult body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, hypertension and diabetes accounted for 41 percent of the association of severe physical abuse and 37 percent of the association of forced sex with cardiovascular disease events. "These traditional cardiovascular risk factors explain about 40 percent of the association we see between abuse and cardiovascular disease – which suggests that other factors may play an important role, such as increased stress reactivity among people with a history of abuse," said Rich-Edwards.

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tags: child abuse
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