This article discusses a study that investigated whether a life-course association between childhood maltreatment and adult inflammation exists. This was tested in the birth cohort of participants of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which has followed a group of 1,000 children born in 1972-73 in Dunedin throughout their lives. Study members were age 32 when they had most recently been assessed in 2004/05. To control for co-occurring risk factors and potential mediating variables, a regression analysis was used to independently estimate the effect of maltreatment on inflammation. The results indicate that 33% of the participants who had experienced maltreatment in childhood showed clinically-relevant inflammation levels at age 32. Of those study members who had not reported maltreatment in childhood, only 18% showed clinically-relevant inflammation levels. The findings suggest that children who are maltreated suffer effects into adult life, long after the maltreatment ends, and that these effects include harm to both physical and psychological health. Several limitations need to be considered in evaluating these findings, for example, replication in other parts of the world would be useful, and it is not known whether these findings generalise to all ethnic groups.

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104(4) January 2007 : 1319-1324