Trajectories of childhood adversity and mortality in early adulthood: a population-based cohort study.

Background: Childhood is a sensitive period with rapid brain development and physiological growth, and adverse events in childhood might interfere with these processes and have long-lasting effects on health. In this study, we aimed to describe trajectories of adverse childhood experiences and relate these to overall and cause-specific mortality in early adult life.

Methods: For this population-based cohort study, we used unselected annually updated data from Danish nationwide registers covering more than 1 million children born between 1980 and 1998.

Both High and Low Levels of Negative Emotions Are Associated with Higher Blood Pressure: Evidence from Whitehall II Cohort Study.

Background: Previous studies of negative emotions and blood pressure (BP) produced mixed findings. Based on the functionalist and evolutionary perspective on emotions, we hypothesized that the association between negative emotions and BP is U-shaped, i.e.

Cohort profile: the DANish LIFE course (DANLIFE) cohort, a prospective register-based cohort of all children born in Denmark since 1980.

Purpose: The DANish LIFE course (DANLIFE) cohort is a prospective register-based study set up to investigate the complex life course mechanisms linking childhood adversities to health and well-being in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood including cumulative and synergistic actions and potentially sensitive periods in relation to health outcomes.

Participants: All children born in Denmark in 1980 or thereafter have successively been included in the cohort totalling more than 2.2 million children.

Externalizing Behaviors Buffer the Effects of Early Life Adversity on Physiologic Dysregulation.

The present study examined the counterintuitive hypothesis that externalizing behaviors such as aggression, although in many respects detrimental, may be functional and protect against the detrimental health consequences of early life adversity. In particular, in line with evolutionary models of development, we argue that externalizing problems moderate the association between chronic stress exposure and allostatic load, a biological marker of chronic physiological dysregulation. Prospective interactive effects of externalizing behaviors and cumulative risk (a confluence of multiple risk factors) on children's allostatic load were assessed in 260 children (46% female, baseline age = 9).

Objective and subjective stress, personality, and allostatic load.

Introduction: Despite the understanding of allostatic load (AL) as a consequence of ongoing adaptation to stress, studies of the stress-AL association generally focus on a narrow conceptualization of stress and have thus far overlooked potential confounding by personality. The present study examined the cross-sectional association of objective and subjective stress with AL, controlling for Big Five personality traits.

Methods: Participants comprised 5,512 members of the Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank aged 49-63 years (69% men).

Mental and physical health effects of meaningful work and rewarding family responsibilities.

Positive feelings about work and family responsibilities benefit psychological well-being, but their physical health effects remain unexplored. The study assessed whether meaningful work and reward from taking care of family benefitted physical health to the same degree as mental health. Participants were 181 Danes aged 49-51.

Moderate emotional reactions to stressful life events are associated with lowest risk of increased alcohol consumption: evidence from the Whitehall II study.

Background: Research investigating the associations between stress-related negative emotions and alcohol consumption often assumes a linear dose-response relationship. Based on the current theories of emotions, we questioned this assumption and hypothesized that both very low and very high levels of negative emotional response (NER) to stressful life events are related to increased alcohol consumption.

Methods: We used data from Phases 1 (1985-88) and 2 (1989-90) of the British Whitehall II study.

Life Events, Emotions, and Immune Function: Evidence from Whitehall II Cohort Study.

Stressful life events have been shown to increase vulnerability to infections. However, the effects may be dependent on specific emotional responses associated with these events. In general, negative emotions are thought to exacerbate and positive emotions to protect from the adverse effects of stressors on health.

Informal caregiving and diurnal patterns of salivary cortisol: Results from the Whitehall II cohort study.

The objective was to investigate the relationship between various aspects of informal caregiving and diurnal patterns of salivary cortisol, with special attention to the moderating effect of sex and work status. The study population was composed of 3727 men and women from the British Whitehall II study. Salivary cortisol was measured six times during a weekday.

Weekly hours of informal caregiving and paid work, and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Background: Little is known on the association between weekly hours of informal caregiving and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The objective was to investigate the individual and joint effects of weekly hours of informal caregiving and paid work on the risk of CVD.

Methods: Pooled analysis with 1396 informal caregivers in gainful employment, from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health and the Whitehall II study.

Parental break-ups and stress: roles of age & family structure in 44 509 pre-adolescent children.

Background: Parental break-up is wide spread, and the effects of parental break-up on children's well-being are known. The evidence regarding child age at break-up and subsequent family arrangements is inconclusive. Aim: to estimate the effects of parental break-up on stress in pre-adolescent children with a specific focus on age at break-up and post-breakup family arrangements.

In risky environments, emotional children have more behavioral problems but lower allostatic load.

Objective: Developmental models of temperament by environment interactions predict that children's negative emotionality exacerbates the detrimental effects of risky environments, increasing the risk for pathology. However, negative emotions may have an adaptive function. Accordingly, the present study explores an alternative hypothesis that in the context of high adversity, negative emotionality may be a manifestation of an adaptive coping style and thus be protective against the harmful effects of a stressful environment.

Job strain and informal caregiving as predictors of long-term sickness absence: A longitudinal multi-cohort study.

Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the individual, joint and interactive effects of job strain and informal caregiving on long-term sickness absence with special attention to gender differences. Methods The study comprised a prospective cohort study of 6798 working adults from France, 14 727 from Finland, and 5275 from the UK. A total of 26 800 participants, age 52 (interquartile range 47-56) years participated in the study.

Role of psychosocial work factors in the relation between becoming a caregiver and changes in health behaviour: results from the Whitehall II cohort study.

Background: The present study tested the effects of becoming a caregiver combined with adverse working conditions on changes in health behaviours.

Methods: Participants were 5419 British civil servants from the Whitehall II cohort study who were not caregivers at baseline (phase 3, 1991-1994). Psychosocial work factors were assessed at baseline.

Neighborhood perceptions and allostatic load: Evidence from Denmark.

An influential argument explaining why living in certain neighborhoods can become harmful to one's health maintains that individuals can perceive certain characteristics of the neighborhood as threatening and the prolonged exposure to a threatening environment could induce chronic stress. Following this line of argumentation, in the present study we test whether subjective perceptions of neighborhood characteristics relate to an objective measure of stress-related physiological functioning, namely allostatic load (AL). We use a large dataset of 5280 respondents living in different regions of Denmark and we account for two alternative mechanisms, i.

Work stress, caregiving, and allostatic load: prospective results from the Whitehall II cohort study.

Objectives: Studies investigating health effects of work and family stress usually consider these factors in isolation. The present study investigated prospective interactive effects of job strain and informal caregiving on allostatic load (AL), a multisystem indicator of physiological dysregulation.

Methods: Participants were 7007 British civil servants from the Whitehall II cohort study.

Children's Emotionality Moderates the Association Between Maternal Responsiveness and Allostatic Load: Investigation Into Differential Susceptibility.

While emotionality is often thought of as a risk factor, differential susceptibility theory argues that emotionality reflects susceptibility to both positive and negative environmental influences. The present study explored whether emotional children might be more susceptible to the effects of both high and low maternal responsiveness on allostatic load, a physiological indicator of chronic stress. Participants were 226 mother and child dyads.

Impaired sleep and allostatic load: cross-sectional results from the Danish Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank.

Objective: Understanding the mechanisms linking sleep impairment to morbidity and mortality is important for future prevention, but these mechanisms are far from elucidated. We aimed to determine the relation between impaired sleep, both in terms of duration and disturbed sleep, and allostatic load (AL), which is a measure of systemic wear and tear of multiple body systems, as well as with individual risk markers within the cardiac, metabolic, anthropometric, and immune system.

Methods: A cross-sectional population-based study of 5226 men and women from the Danish Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank with comprehensive information on sleep duration, disturbed sleep, objective measures of an extensive range of biological risk markers, and physical conditions.

Early life adversity potentiates the effects of later life stress on cumulative physiological dysregulation.

Background And Objectives: Previous research indicates that early life adversity may heighten stress reactivity and impair mechanisms for adaptive coping, suggesting that experience of stress in early life may also potentiate adults' physiological vulnerability to stress in later life. The study tested this hypothesis by investigating whether the experience of stressful events and circumstances (SEC) in childhood or adolescence amplified the effect of adulthood SEC on physiological dysregulation (allostatic load, AL) in later midlife.

Design: Observational data were used in the present study.

A non-linear association between self-reported negative emotional response to stress and subsequent allostatic load: prospective results from the Whitehall II cohort study.

Previous research suggests that high levels of negative emotions may affect health. However, it is likely that the absence of an emotional response following stressful events may also be problematic. Accordingly, we investigated whether a non-linear association exists between negative emotional response to major life events and allostatic load, a multisystem indicator of physiological dysregulation.

Childhood cumulative risk and later allostatic load: mediating role of substance use.

Objective: The present study investigated the long-term impact of exposure to poverty-related stressors during childhood on allostatic load, an index of physiological dysregulation, and the potential mediating role of substance use.

Method: Participants (n = 162) were rural children from New York State, followed for 8 years (between the ages 9 and 17). Poverty- related stress was computed using the cumulative risk approach, assessing stressors across 9 domains, including environmental, psychosocial, and demographic factors.

Orthographic consistency affects spoken word recognition at different grain-sizes.

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previous studies demonstrated this by manipulating feedback consistency of rhymes.