Childhood Abuse and Later Inflammatory Response

Impaired glucocorticoid response to stress, a marker of inflammation, can occur after child maltreatment. These investigators examined the relation between childhood maltreatment and adulthood levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), which is a marker of inflammation and vulnerability to cardiovascular disease.

Participants were 972 people, all at age 32, who had been followed periodically since age 3 in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (96% of the total baseline sample). Researchers looked at other measures of inflammation (fibrinogen levels and white blood cell count) and multiple measures of early risks (low birth weight, low IQ, low socioeconomic status), adult stress (low occupational level, depre…