Adverse events and trauma experienced during childhood increase the risk of developing lung cancer in later life, according to a new study.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta claimed that children who go through traumatic experience are like to face a terrible burden of stressors.
These stressors are associated with harmful behaviours, such as smoking, that may lead to the development of diseases like lung cancer and perhaps death at younger ages, they said in their research published in the BMC Public Health journal.
"Adverse childhood experiences were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, particularly premature death from lung cancer. Although smoking behaviours, including early smoking initiation and heavy smoking, account for the greater part of this risk, other mechanisms or pathophysiologic pathways may be involved," said David Brown who led the study.
"Compared to those who claimed no childhood trauma, people who experienced six or more traumas were about three times more likely to have lung cancer, identified either through hospitalisation records or mortality records," he said.
"Of the people who developed, or died of, lung cancer, those with six or more adverse events in childhood were roughly 13 years younger at presentation than those with none.
"People who had experienced more adverse events in childhood showed more smoking behaviours," he added.
The central message of the study, which analysed the effects of childhood abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), is that our children can become victim of terrible stressors that lead to their premature death.
The researchers suggested to adopt new methods that can help reduce the burden of traumatic childhood experiences.
"Reducing the burden of adverse childhood experiences should therefore be considered in health and social programmes as a means of primary prevention of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases," they wrote in their paper.