Kids of divorced parents might experience strokes: Study
A Canadian research has recently found that children of divorced parents face twice as more risk of developing a heart disease as compared to normal kids with a happier childhood.
Researchers surveyed about 13,000 Canadians from two Canadian provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and found 10 per cent of such cases with parental divorcee; and about 2 percent of them have experienced a stroke. "I certainly don't want this to be taken to mean that children from divorced households are condemned to have strokes," said study author Dr. Esme Fuller-Thomson, a professor and Sandra Rotman Chair in the faculties of social work, medicine and nursing at the University of Toronto. She noted this is just one among the other risk factors.
The study also analyzed other influential factors like age, race, gender, socio-economic and educational backgrounds however were unable to draw a bottom-line to the finding.
"This needs to be replicated several times to make sure there really is this relationship," cautioned Fuller-Thomson. "But if this holds up, one possible explanation is that adverse child experiences may become physically embedded in the way you react to stresses later on in life, particularly in terms of dysfunctions in cortisol levels, which is what's involved in the fight-or-flight mechanism. It's possible. But that's just a hypothesis at this point," she added.
"But the other important thing to note is that even if divorce is proved to cause stroke, many of these people who we looked at who are having stroke are now in their 60s, 70s and 80s," she noted.
Therefore researchers concluded that the context of divorce might have been different at that age and cannot be predicted for future.
Dr. Kirk Garratt, clinical director of interventional cardiovascular research at Lenox Hill Hospital also agreed that the findings were a bit premature. "But it certainly stimulates a discussion, because we would want to understand what actual mechanisms underpin this, particularly since divorce itself is probably not a modifiable risk factor." he explained.