Child Abuse: Physical And Psychological Consequences In Abused Children
A series of recent investigations reveal that neurobiological alterations as a consequence of child abuse, not only increase the possibility of suffering from mental disorders in adulthood but also increase the chances of suffering from future organic disordersas well as behavioral alterations.
Child abuse, domestic violence, and childhood abandonment are potential traumatic events for any child, and are much more common than you think. According to the University College London Children’s Mental Health Centereach year between 4 and 16 percent of children in Western industrialized countries suffer physical abuse and 1 in 10 suffers neglect or extreme psychological overload.
With regard to sexual abuse in childhood, among 5 and 10 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys have suffered from it at some time throughout his childhood.
Adverse experiences during childhood
I have divided the following study into different phases, since although it began during the period 1995-1997, the data analyzes have continued for several years, obtaining a large number of results.
Phase 1 – Beginning
The study is often abbreviated as ACE (for its acronym in English).
The investigation began in 1995 in San Diego, with the participation of 17,000 subjects who were subjected to regular medical check-ups. They also had to report in detail about what type of traumatic experiences they may have suffered during childhood (violence, abuse, abandonment) and to what extent.
Phase 2 – First results
In 1998, the researcher Vincent Felittiwho belonged to the preventive medicine department of the Kaiser Permanente medical group, came to the following conclusions when analyzing the data obtained by the ACE study together with his team.
According to one survey used During the study, subjects who answered yes to more than three questions about childhood abuse and neglect had up to 12 times more possibilities to suffer alcoholism, drug addiction or develop depression, compared to people who had not suffered these events (and therefore, responded negatively to the survey).
Other striking results were the increase in: suffer from smoking and obesity; practice less sport and have sporadic sexual relations.
Phase 3 – Variable Analysis
After the previous results, in the year 2003 The researchers decided to check the results on the increase in the appearance of cardiovascular diseases coronary arteries (as a result of abuse and abandonment) in the following way.
They analyzed how these types of diseases increased in three different ways:
That is, what increases the most the possibility of suffering from coronary cardiovascular problems They are neither sex, nor whether one suffers from depression, nor eating habits, nor physical activity, nor any of these variables, but rather childhood traumas.
Phase 4 – Latest results
Finally, in 2004, other subsequent evaluations of the same results revealed that those who had suffered this abuse during childhood and youth more frequently presented coronary heart diseaseand more specifically: the more severe the childhood traumas, the greater the chances of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, lung pathologies, cancer, liver diseases (blood-related diseases) and autoimmune disorders.
Brief biological explanation of the effects of child abuse
The childhood trauma They alter the biological mechanisms of the body. Stress hormones and certain neurotransmitters influence, leaving long-term marks on the child’s brain.
These alterations are especially evident in the communication between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal cortex.
Emotional abuse, abandonment and multiple sclerosis
A study carried out in the Hamburg Eppendorf University Clinicled by researcher Carsten Spitzer obtained the following surprising results.
He chose a total of 234 patients with multiple sclerosis and 885 healthy people. All of them had to report on their experiences during childhood. What was obtained was that both emotional abuse and abandonment were the twice as common among individuals with multiple sclerosiscompared to the healthy group.
A moral quartet, a Metabolic Syndrome and Childhood Traumas
One of the keys to this syndrome is that the appearance of one of these factors, enhances the appearance of others.
Well, various works have confirmed that these 4 components belonging to the metabolic syndrome They can appear as a result of traumatic experiences during childhood.of which the most pronounced is that of the abdominal adiposity.
The latter has been corroborated by a study called NESDA (for its acronym in English) and carried out in 2012, in the Netherlands on depression and anxiety. In it they found a relationship between childhood sexual abuse and excess fat in the abdomen.
Child abuse and psychosis in adulthood
First of all, let’s define what abuse is. According to the World Health Organization:
“Child abuse is defined as abuse and neglect of children under 18 years of age, and includes all types of physical or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, neglect, and commercial or other exploitation that causes or may cause cause harm to the health, development or dignity of the child, or endanger the child’s survival, in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power. Exposure to intimate partner violence is also sometimes included among forms of child abuse.”
Taking into account the neurological immaturity of the brain during the first years of life, it is well known that it is more sensitive to events and experiences. This sensitivity gives the advantage of learning very quickly, but it can also entail great dangers:
Childhood abuse and psychotic symptoms
According to a study by the University of Barcelona analyzed the relationship between Child abuse and the development of psychotic symptoms. The first thing they discovered was that although there wereto people who, despite having suffered childhood abuse, were able to overcome it and lead a mentally healthy life.
Subsequently, the results suggested that such individual differences reside in the gene for the neurotrophic factor (proteins that are responsible for the survival of neurons) derived from the brain known as BDNF. Apparently, this gene promotes the growth, differentiation of neurons and their survival during periods of stress.
In this study published in the journal The British Journal of Psychiatryexplains how exposure to severe childhood abuse (sexual, physical and/or emotional) is associated with a greater probability of suffering from psychotic symptoms in adult life. Furthermore, and this is where the BDNF gene comes into play, subjects who have certain alleles for this gene were more vulnerable to this type of abuse, compared to those who had another variable (the former had an allele called Met and the seconds Val).
If you don’t understand the latter very well, think that for blood there are 3 alleles: A, B and O, and the different blood groups are obtained from the combination of these.
Genetic factors
There are a series of genes that increase the chances of suffering from long-term organic problems if you have suffered traumatic experiences.
According to some studies, one of these genes appears to be the FKBP5 gene. This gene encodes a protein (along with others) that affects the sensitivity of tissues and organs that react to cortisol (commonly known as the “stress hormone”).
Given the results, it has been proven that certain FKBP5 variants increase the risk of depression (multiplying it by 8 for one of these variants), and post-traumatic disorders, for those who suffered abuse in childhood.
Furthermore, these same data also indicate that Some of the variants of this same gene are also related to organic disorders. But this remains to be confirmed.
What is truly striking about this type of genes is the importance they can have for the appearance of various disorders, but only if there has been an environmental trigger, which in this case, is abuse in childhood. In other words, if a person has not experienced traumatic and stressful events during childhoodhaving these genes will not increase the chances of suffering from these disorders.
Childhood abuse and its influence on epigenetic modifications
This is known as epigenetic modifications:
These modifications are appendages that attach to the DNA, influencing the frequency with which a certain gene is read. That is to say, Although the person’s genetic code does not change, its functioning does..
