Example 7: Effects of prospectively ascertained early-life adversity on adult physiology and physical health in midlife. The Dunedin Study team has continued its investigations into how early-life psychosocial stress is converted to physiological abnormalities in biomarkers, thus leading to poor health and accelerated ageing. This work began in earnest 10+ years ago by showing that growing out of childhood socioeconomic disadvantage by adulthood did not undo or mitigate the damage caused by early adversity [65]. This was followed by data showing elevated inflammation via C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, and white blood cell count in adult victims of child abuse [66, 67]. We brought together multiple childhood risks (socioeconomic disadvantage, social isolation, maltreatment) and multiple age-related disease entities (depression, inflammation, cardiovascular risk) to show prediction beyond traditional risk factors, and critically, the need for a multi-pronged intervention policy response because of non-redundancy among the childhood risk factors [68].
