Psychologists find violence and trauma in childhood accelerate puberty
Experiencing adversity early in life has a direct effect on a person’s mental and physical health as they grow, and certain kinds of trauma can affect the pace of aging, according to new Harvard research.
In addition to being risk factors for anxiety, depression, and stress, early life experiences like poverty, neglect, and violence are powerful predictors of physical health outcomes like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and even early mortality, said Katie McLaughlin, associate professor of psychology and senior author of “Biological Aging in Childhood and Adolescence Following Experiences of Threat and Deprivation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” in a new paper in the Aug. 3 Psychological Bulletin.
In their research, McLaughlin and three colleagues investigated two different forms of childhood adversity and their connection to alterations in the pace of biological aging, including the onset of puberty, the rate of cellular aging, and the maturation of regions in the brain underlying emotional responses.
They found that violent or traumatic experiences led to accelerations in pubertal development, brain development, and cellular aging, while neglect and chronic poverty did not, though they can affect physical and cognitive development in other ways. For example, children exposed to deprivation often experience delays in cognitive development and difficulties with learning and memory that can contribute to poor school performance.
“The question we were really interested in is whether all negative experiences early in life are the same in terms of how they might impact the aging process, and one of the most interesting findings of the paper is that the answer is a very clear ‘no,’” said McLaughlin.
The group reviewed 83 ELA studies, focusing on participants under age 18 and separating the experiences into two categories: threat-based (experiencing or witnessing violence) and deprivation-based (neglect by families or institutions). They investigated the associations between each using a variety of biological aging metrics: pubertal development, brain development, and cellular aging.
In their analysis of pubertal development, the researchers found that children who experienced violence reached puberty at an earlier age than those who did not, but this was not true for children exposed to deprivation or poverty. In this case, researchers postulate, earlier sexual maturation may act as the body’s way to prepare for earlier reproduction, based on the presence of threats that could contribute to imminent mortality.
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