Dr.Felitti's Suggestions for High ACE Scorers

There's also Dr. Gabor Mate's book: When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection

There are a couple of good books about what people with high ACE scores can do, both by science writer Donna Jackson Nakazawa. The Last Best Cure was published in 2013 -- it's about Donna's personal journey in taking a new approach with her decades-long battle with autoimmune diseases, after a physician at Johns Hopkins asked her if anything in her childhood could have contributed to her health.

Her second book -- Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology -- will be out in July. It could be described as a self-help book about ACEs. Here's the flap copy:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Not quite. Far more often, the opposite is true. Over the past decade, a group of doctors and scientists has discovered that childhood trauma leads to lifelong struggles with mental and physical health. Early chronic stressors shape our biology in ways that pre-determine our adult health. In other words, your biography becomes your biology.

Award-winning science journalist and author Donna Jackson Nakazawa started investigating the relationship between childhood adversity and adult physical health after spending more than a dozen years suffering from several life-limiting autoimmune illnesses. In her search to understand chronic illness, she came across the growing body of science based on a public health research study, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. The ACE Study shows an irrefutable scientific link between many types of childhood adversity and the adult onset of physical disease and mental health disorders.

In this groundbreaking work that beautifully blends science and personal stories, Nakazawa shines a light on how the emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains. These traumas can lead to life-altering adult illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia and depression. It also lays the groundwork for how we relate to others, how successful our love relationships will be and how well we will nurture and raise our own children. Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk.

And she also lays out a path for healing. Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal. Trailblazing in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted shows how you or someone you know may have become locked in pain—and what you can do to recover.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist, public speaker, and author of The Last Best Cure, in which she chronicled her yearlong journey to health, and The Autoimmune Epidemic, an investigation into the reasons behind today’s rising rates of autoimmune diseases. She is also the author of Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?, as well as a contributor to the Andrew Weil Integrative Medicine Library book Integrative Gastroenterology?. Ms. Nakazawa lectures nationwide. Learn more at DonnaJacksonNakazawa.com.

Edwin, Love your dog-year ACEs!!! Made me laugh!!!

Hi, Cissy: The attachment won't open for me. Do you mind incorporating what he said into your blog post?

Thanks!

Cheers, Jane

Thanks Christine, for reaching out to Dr. Felitti and posting his response.  As a 62 year old 7+ACE'er, if 19 years have already been chopped off of my life expectancy, then I suppose I would be the equivalent of 81 years old in ACES age....or something like that...Math has never been my strong suit.  Perhaps someone so inclined might create an equivalent to 'dog years' for folks high on the ACES spectrum.

    All kidding aside, about a decade or so ago, the good Dr. Felitti was posed a similar query after his presentation at an event I attended, except then he was asked for his primary recommendation as to what could be done in response to the findings in the study.  Without hesitation he said, "Establish a universal  parenting education program."  The Obama administration's efforts to support home visiting programs along the lines of the Nurse Family Partnership model was a good start, although the current state of national party politics makes it hard to believe that something like this could be brought up to the scale that is needed.

    As for adults like me, greater attention to the resilience factors have the potential to decrease the ACES-dog years formula.  

   In the meantime, I can take solace that at 81-ACES years old, I don't look a day over 62.  {and as Fernando says, https://youtu.be/J0RTD7250II}

....edwin