Adverse Childhood Experiences and Hashimoto’s Disease

Recently I have been researching the fascinating field of childhood trauma and uncovered an interesting link between adverse childhood experiences and Hashimoto’s disease. One of the studies I discovered came out of a large, important public health study, The ACE Study, but it focused specifically on cumulative childhood stress and autoimmune disease in adults. What are adverse childhood experiences? Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are experiences that expose individuals under the age of 18 to childhood traumatic stress. These experiences include physical, emotional or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or the incarceration of a household member. Who was studied? A group of 15,357 adult Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization members available for follow-up through 2005 was involved in this study. They were selected from the ACE Study, which was performed from 1995 to 1997. These individuals are interesting because while many studies have looked at inner-city poor people of color, this study’s participants were mostly white, middle and upper-middle class college-educated San Diegans with good jobs and great health care. This highly educated population was made up of 40 percent college graduates. Of the remaining individuals, 36% had some college education, 17% were high school graduates (i.e., they had 12 years of education). Only 7% had not completed high school. What did they measure? The study authors looked at the data from the ACE Study and created an ACE Score that included eight types of interrelated and co-occurring exposure to childhood adversity to measure cumulative childhood traumatic stress. So, the greater the number of adverse experiences, the higher the score. The ACE Study Questionnaire is very simple and includes the following 10 questions.   “While you were growing up, during your first 18 years of life:   1) Did a parent or other adult in the household often …   Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?   2) Did a parent or other adult in the household often …   Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?   3) Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever…   Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Try to or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal sex with you?   4) Did you often feel that …   No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?   5) Did you often feel that …   You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?   6) Were your parents ever separated or divorced?