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The Preeminence of Early Life Trauma as a Risk Factor for Worsened Long-Term Health Outcomes in Women

Current Psychiatry Reports volume 17, Article number: 90 (2015) Cite this article

Abstract

Early life trauma (ELT) comprises an array of disturbingly common distressing experiences between conception and the beginning of adulthood with numerous and significant potential long-term, even transgenerational, health consequences of great public health concern, including depression, cardiovascular disease, and other psychiatric and medical disorders, and neurobiological, psychological, and behavioral effects which are sufficiently robust to confound many types of biomedical research. The impact of ELT on a woman’s health trajectory appears to vary with the specific characteristics of the ELT (e.g., type, number of different types, severity, and timing), the individual (e.g., age, genetics, epigenetics, personality, and cognitive factors), and the individual’s environment (e.g., level of social support and ongoing stressors) and to be mediated to a significant extent by persistent changes in a number of biological systems, dysregulation of those governing the stress response chief among them. Growing knowledge of the risk factors and pathophysiological mechanisms by which ELT confers diathesis to various poor health outcomes and the unique treatment–response profiles of women with ELT will lead to much needed improvements in prevention, diagnostic, and therapeutic efforts, including more effective psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy approaches, hopefully making strides toward improvements in the lives of women everywhere and ending countless cycles of intergenerational trauma-associated pathology. This article attempts to broadly summarize the current state of knowledge about the long-term sequelae of ELT for women’s health.

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Conflict of Interest

Nils C. Westfall declares no conflict of interest.

Charles. B. Nemeroff consults for Xhale, Takeda, SK Pharma, Shire, Roche, Lilly, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Development America, Taisho Pharmaceutical Inc., and Lundbeck. He is a stockholder in Opko, Antares, Xhale, Celgene, Seattle Genetics and Abbvie. He serves on the scientific advisory boards of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), CeNeRx BioPharma (2012), the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), Xhale, PharmaNeuroBoost (2012), Clintara, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), and Skyland Trail. He serves on the board of directors for AFSP, Skyland Trail, Gratitude America, and ADAA. He receives income in excess of $10,000 from Clintara, American Psychiatric Publishing, and Xhale. He holds two patents: Method and devices for transdermal delivery of lithium (US 6,375,990B1) and Method of assessing antidepressant drug therapy via transport inhibition of monoamine neurotransmitters by ex vivo assay (US 7,148,027B2). None of these activities present a conflict with the current article.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, 33136, USA

    Nils C. Westfall & Charles. B. Nemeroff

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  1. Nils C. Westfall
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Correspondence to Nils C. Westfall.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Women’s Mental Health

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Westfall, N.C., Nemeroff, C.B. The Preeminence of Early Life Trauma as a Risk Factor for Worsened Long-Term Health Outcomes in Women. Curr Psychiatry Rep 17, 90 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-015-0625-6

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Keywords

  • Trauma
  • Abuse
  • Stress
  • Women
  • Risk factor
  • Depression
  • PTSD