Freelance journalist Charlotte Silver interviewed Vincent Felitti and me for this story, which was published on Alternet on Tuesday. Here's the beginning:
A man, 50, begins to experience shortness of breath and aching chest pains. He goes to his doctor, who diagnoses him with coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. A year later the man has a heart attack and dies. Yet he had none of the risk factors associated with heart disease. So how did he get it?
The Framingham Heart Study, a long-term cardiovascular study on the residents of Framington, Massachusetts which ran from 1948 to the early 2000s, found that almost 90 percent of those with coronary heart disease have one of five recognized risk factors—smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and physical inactivity. This information equipped doctors to provide preventive healthcare for heart failure by steering patients away from these risky or unhealthy behaviors.
The man above is hypothetical, but he's representative of 10 percent of Americans who die of coronary heart disease yet have none of the risk factors. Some of these people may, however, have something else in common: childhood trauma.
http://www.alternet.org/comments/personal-health/can-childhood-trauma-shorten-your-life
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