When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched research in the 1990s into the relationship between traumatic experiences in childhood and health problems in adulthood, they first focused on mental health outcomes and health problems that stemmed from poor lifestyle choices.
Those choices included smoking, drinking, and bad eating habits, made more likely by abuse or neglect in childhood.
But as the research gathered steam, an interesting pattern emerged.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) correlated with higher risk for disease later in life well beyond mental health conditions. The risks remained even when researchers filtered out risky behaviors like smoking, drinking, and diet.
[For more of this story, written by Cameron Scott, go to http://www.healthline.com/heal...parents-fault-042415]
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