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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Risky Families: Family Social Environments and the Mental and Physical Health of Offspring

Rena L. Repetti, +2 more
- 01 Mar 2002 - 
- Vol. 128, Iss: 2, pp 330-366
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TLDR
It is concluded that childhood family environments represent vital links for understanding mental and physical health across the life span.
Abstract
Risky families are characterized by conflict and aggression and by relationships that are cold, unsupportive, and neglectful. These family characteristics create vulnerabilities and/or interact with genetically based vulnerabilities in offspring that produce disruptions in psychosocial functioning (specifically emotion processing and social competence), disruptions in stress-responsive biological regulatory systems, including sympathetic-adrenomedullary and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical functioning, and poor health behaviors, especially substance abuse. This integrated biobehavioral profile leads to consequent accumulating risk for mental health disorders, major chronic diseases, and early mortality. We conclude that childhood family environments represent vital links for understanding mental and physical health across the life span.

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The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology

TL;DR: The graded relationship of the ACE score to 18 different outcomes in multiple domains theoretically parallels the cumulative exposure of the developing brain to the stress response with resulting impairment in multiple brain structures and functions.
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TL;DR: As an adjunct to pharmaceutical therapy, social and behavioral interventions such as regular physical activity and social support reduce the chronic stress burden and benefit brain and body health and resilience.
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Stress and disorders of the stress system

TL;DR: Optimal basal activity and responsiveness of the stress system is essential for a sense of well-being, successful performance of tasks, and appropriate social interactions, which might impair development, growth and body composition, and lead to a host of behavioral and somatic pathological conditions.
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Personality development: stability and change.

TL;DR: This review examines research about the structure of personality in childhood and in adulthood, with special attention to possible developmental changes in the lower-order components of broad traits.
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If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans.

TL;DR: A meta-analysis showed that much of the variability in HPA activity is attributable to stressor and person features, as hormonal activity is elevated at stressor onset but reduces as time passes.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study

TL;DR: For example, this article found a strong relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.
Journal ArticleDOI

Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators

TL;DR: The long-term effect of the physiologic response to stress is reviewed, which I refer to as allostatic load, which is the ability to achieve stability through change.
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