Early life stress may cause cardiac disease

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"We think early life stress increases sensitivity to a hormone known to increase your blood pressure and increases your cardiovascular risk in adult life," said Jennifer Pollock.

Pollock is a biochemist in the Vascular Biology Centre at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) and study co-author.

The studies in a proven model of chronic behavioural stress - separating rat pups from their mother three hours daily for two weeks - showed no long-term impact on key indicators of cardiovascular disease such as increased blood pressure, heart rate or inflammation in blood vessel walls.

But when the rats reached adulthood, an infusion of the hormone angiotensin II resulted in rapid and dramatic increases in all key indicators in animals that experienced early life stress. `

"They cannot adapt to stress as well as a normal animal does," Pollock said. Within a few days, for example, blood pressure was nearly twice as high in the early-stress animals.

The chronic stress model most typically has been used to look at the psychological impact of childhood stress; this was the first time it was used to measure cardiovascular impact, Pollock said.

Findings correlate with studies published in Circulation in 2004 that identified adverse childhood events, such as abuse or parental loss, in the backgrounds of many adults with ischemic heart disease, said an MCG release.

These findings were published online in the journal Hypertension.