Adverse childhood experiences may be associated with harmful behaviors leading to smoking-related disease..

January 20, 2010 - The central message of this study is that our children can be faced with a terrible burden of stressors. These stressors are associated with harmful behaviors, such as smoking, that may lead the development of diseases like lung cancer and perhaps death at younger ages. Reducing the burden of adverse childhood experiences should therefore be considered in health and social programs as a means of primary prevention of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases.

Stressors included: effects of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), witnessing domestic violence, parental separation, or growing up in a household where people were mentally ill, substance abusers, or sent to prison.

PAPER: Adverse childhood experiences are associated with the risk of lung cancer: a prospective cohort study, David W Brown, Robert F Anda, Vincent J Felitti, Valerie J Edwards, Ann Marie Malarcher, Janet B Croft and Wayne H Giles, BMC Public Health 2010, 10:20doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-20, 19 January 2010, ABSTRACT..

Reference: Adverse childhood experiences are associated with increased risk of lung cancer, The Medical News, 1/19/2010.