Psychosocial disadvantage in childhood contributes to health disparities in aging-related outcomes through biological, behavioral, and systemic pathways. A recent paper published in JAMA Network Open using data from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study (NGHS) examined how girls’ childhood psychosocial disadvantage, specifically higher perceived stress and lower socioeconomic status, may affect age-related health in midlife.
The NGHS study enrolled 10 year old girls in 1987-1988 and followed them up to 19 years old. A subset of participants were recruited again at 40 years old to examine midlife health and aging. The current study included 433 women whose perceived stress and parental socioeconomic status were assessed in childhood (ages 10 and 11), then late-adolescent adiposity (waist circumference) was measured at age 19, and insulin resistance and epigenetic age were measured at age 40.
Katie Alegria, PhD. shared her perspective on the importance of this study design: “Most studies examining links between childhood experiences and adult health rely on retrospective reports of stress. By including perceived stress measured around age 10, we are able to determine if appraisals of psychological stress, even as children, can be relevant for health into adulthood.” The results showed that having higher perceived stress as a child and a parent who had a lower level of education were each independently associated with elevated insulin resistance in midlife. Girls’ whose parents had less education or lower income had a more advanced epigenetic age compared to girls whose parents had more education or higher income. These findings add to the robust literature indicating that systemic inequities faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged children promote health disparities that persist into midlife.
The study authors also considered likely physiological pathways that might explain the association between childhood perceived stress and both insulin resistance and epigenetic age; namely, adiposity (measured at age 19). Because psychological stress can contribute to greater visceral fat, and visceral fat decreases the effectiveness of insulin, there was a strong evidence base to consider whether adiposity may explain the association between childhood perceived stress and insulin resistance. Indeed, the authors found that childhood perceived stress was associated with both midlife insulin resistance and epigenetic age partially because of adiposity at age 19. When asked about this finding, Ryan Brown, PhD said: “By focusing our conceptual model on the reciprocal relationship between psychological stress and adiposity, we were able to highlight the importance of a lifespan perspective on stress, adiposity, and age-related health. We know from prior research that psychological stress contributes to adiposity and that greater adiposity is associated with greater weight stigma, which can then lead to more adiposity; thus, future research must focus on the multidimensional contributors to adiposity (including social stress), how these factors interact over time, and the social implications of adiposity itself to best support age-related health on a population level.”
Read the full publication here.
