In addition to taking an emotional toll, childhood stress and hardships can also wreak havoc on the digestive system.
New research published in the journal Gastroenterology revealed that early experiences can rewire the body, leading to lifelong stomach issues.
Scientists at New York University focused on communication between the brain and the gut, finding that when a child experiences significant stress, this connection is disrupted.
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That disruption can manifest years later as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic stomach pain or motility issues like constipation and diarrhea.
“Our research shows that these stressors can have a real impact on a child’s development and may influence gut issues long-term,” study author Kara Margolis, a professor at NYU, said in a press release.
“When the brain is impacted, the gut is likely also impacted — the two systems communicate 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she added.
The study looked at both animal models and long-term data from over 40,000 children in Denmark and 12,000 in the U.S.
Researchers found that mice subjected to early-life stress showed higher levels of anxiety and gut pain. Mice symptoms varied by gender, as females were more prone to diarrhea and males were more prone to constipation.
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Children whose mothers had depression during or after pregnancy, or those who had more emotionally difficult childhoods, were more likely to develop digestive disorders as early as age 10, the researchers noted.
Unlike the mouse studies, the human data showed no differences between males and females in digestive outcomes, which suggests that early stress may affect gut-brain health for both genders during key stages of development.
The results show how symptoms are controlled by different “pathways” in the body, doctors said. For example, the nerves responsible for gut movement are separate from the pathways that control gut pain.
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This means there is no single cure for gut issues, the team stated. If a patient has pain but no motility issues, they would need a different treatment than someone who has constipation but no pain.
By identifying these specific biological triggers, scientists say they are moving toward more personalized treatments that target the root cause of a patient’s symptoms.
“When patients come in with gut problems, we shouldn’t just be asking them if they are stressed right now; what happened in your childhood is also a really important question and something we need to consider,” said Margolis.
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“This developmental history could ultimately inform how we understand how some disorders of gut-brain interaction develop and treat them based on specific mechanisms.”
