Childhood Distress May Cause Heart and Other Health Problems Later

It is not a new concept that mind affects the physical health, and physical health contributes to mental distress. A 45-year study of nearly 7,000 people born in a single week in UK in 1958 found that distress in childhood was associated with higher risk for heart disease and diabetes later in life, according to the study, which was published in the American College of Cardiology yesterday. Speaking to VOA Tibetan Service, Ashley Winning, the main author of the study at Harvard University, says that anyone who had experienced distress during childhood was at higher risk of cardiovascular metabolic disease, even though they may have recovered from distress later. “What was most interesting or surprising was that those people who had distress in childhood only, but not high distress in adulthood, were still at increased risk,” said Winning. But the study shows that those with persistent distress throughout their lives had the highest risk of cardiometabolic diseases.