Biological expressions of early life trauma in the immune system of older adults

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Abstract

Background

Poor immune function is associated with increased risk for a number of age-related diseases, however, little is known about the impact of early life trauma on immune function in late-life.

Methods

Using nationally representative data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 5,823), we examined the association between experiencing parental/caregiver death or separation before age 16 and four indicators of immune function in late-life: C-reactive Protein (CRP), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), soluble Tumor Necrosis Factor (sTNFR), and Immunoglobulin G (IgG) response to cytomegalovirus (CMV). We also examined racial/ethnic differences.

Findings

Individuals that identified as racial/ethnic minorities were more likely to experience parental/caregiver loss and parental separation in early life compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, and had poorer immune function in late-life. We found consistent associations between experiencing parental/caregiver loss and separation and poor immune function measured by CMV IgG levels and IL-6 across all racial/ethnic subgroups. For example, among Non-Hispanic Blacks, those that experienced parental/caregiver death before age 16 had a 26% increase in CMV IgG antibodies in late-life (β = 1.26; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.34) compared to a 3% increase in CMV antibodies among Non-Hispanic Whites (β = 1.03; 95% CI: 0.99, 1.07) controlling for age, gender, and parental education.

Interpretation

Our results suggest a durable association between experiencing early life trauma and immune health in late-life, and that structural forces may shape the ways in which these relationships unfold over the life course.

Related collections

Most cited references 53

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Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.

V. Felitti, R F Anda, D Nordenberg … (1998)

The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described. A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded. Seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were studied: psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned. The number of categories of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measures of adult risk behavior, health status, and disease. Logistic regression was used to adjust for effects of demographic factors on the association between the cumulative number of categories of childhood exposures (range: 0-7) and risk factors for the leading causes of death in adult life. More than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported > or = 2 categories of childhood exposures. We found a graded relationship between the number of categories of childhood exposure and each of the adult health risk behaviors and diseases that were studied (P or = 50 sexual intercourse partners, and sexually transmitted disease; and 1.4- to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. The number of categories of adverse childhood exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease. The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life. We found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.

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Vincent Felitti, Robert Anda, Dale Nordenberg … (1998)

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A growing body of research identifies the harmful effects that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; occurring during childhood or adolescence; eg, child maltreatment or exposure to domestic violence) have on health throughout life. Studies have quantified such effects for individual ACEs. However, ACEs frequently co-occur and no synthesis of findings from studies measuring the effect of multiple ACE types has been done.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Grace A. Noppert:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2040-960X

Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing

Kate A. Duchowny: Role: ConceptualizationRole: Writing – review & editing

Rebecca Stebbins: Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Writing – review & editing

Allison E. Aiello: Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing

Jennifer B. Dowd: Role: Writing – review & editing

Philippa Clarke: Role: ConceptualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing

Neha John-Henderson: Role: Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS One

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS One

Journal ID (publisher-id): plos

Title: PLOS ONE

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )

ISSN (Electronic): 1932-6203

Publication date (Electronic): 21 June 2023

Publication date Collection: 2023

Volume: 18

Issue: 6

Electronic Location Identifier: e0286141

Affiliations

[1 ] Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

[2 ] Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America

[3 ] Social, Genetic, & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

[4 ] Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

[5 ] Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

[6 ] Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Montana State University, UNITED STATES

Author notes

Competing Interests: This study was partially funded by multiple sources including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging R00AG062749 (GN), R01AG075719 (AA and GN), and K99AG066846-02 (KAD). Further, JBD acknowledges support from the Leverhulme Trust (Centre Grant). The funders have had no role in the design or conceptualization of the study, nor in the interpretation of the results. This study is not associated with any patents, products in development or marketed products. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

* E-mail: gnoppert@ 123456umich.edu

Author information

Grace A. Noppert https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2040-960X

Article

Publisher ID: PONE-D-23-01352

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286141

PMC ID: 10284407

SO-VID: 88355726-9385-4df6-a088-a16dd73ce02d

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

History

Date received : 18 January 2023

Date accepted : 9 May 2023