Association between childhood abuse and risk of post-COVID-19 conditions: Results from three large prospective cohort studies, 2024, Vyas et al.

Association between childhood abuse and risk of post-COVID-19 conditions: Results from three large prospective cohort studies
Vyas; Wang; Menor; Kubzansky; Slopen; Rich-Edwards; Chavarro; Kang; Roberts

BACKGROUND
Significant early life adversities, such as childhood sexual and physical/emotional abuse, are associated with risk of poor health outcomes but are understudied risk factors for postCOVID-19 conditions. In this prospective study, we examined the associations between combined exposure to sexual and physical/emotional abuse during childhood with risk of postCOVID-19 conditions in adulthood. Additionally, we explored the extent to which lifestyle, health-related and psychological factors explain this association.

METHODS
We used data from three large, ongoing cohorts: Nurses’ Health Study (NHS)-II, NHS3, and the Growing Up Today Study. Between April 2020 and November 2021, participants responded to periodic COVID-19 surveys.

Participants were included if they responded to a questionnaire about childhood abuse, subsequently tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection and responded to questions about post-COVID-19 conditions. Childhood sexual abuse was measured before the COVID-19 pandemic with the Sexual Maltreatment Scale of the Parent Child Conflict Tactics Scale, and physical/emotional abuse was measured with the Physical and Emotional Abuse Subscale of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Post-COVID-19 conditions, defined as COVID–19–related symptoms lasting 4 weeks or longer (e.g., fatigue, dyspnea), were self-reported in the final COVID-19 questionnaire in November 2021. Sexual abuse and physical/emotional abuse were examined separately and jointly in relation to post-COVID-19 conditions. Data on key lifestyle (e.g., cigarette smoking), health-related (e.g., asthma, diabetes), and psychological factors (e.g., depression and anxiety) were obtained.

RESULTS
Of 2851 participants, the mean age (range) was 55.8 (22.0-75.0) years; 2789 (97.8%) were females, and 2750 (96.5%) were whites. We observed a dose-dependent relationship between severity of childhood abuse and post-COVID conditions (p-trend:<0.0001); participants with severe versus no childhood abuse had a 42% higher subsequent risk of post-COVID conditions [relative risk (95% confidence interval): 1.42 (1.25 to 1.61)]. Key lifestyle, healthrelated, and psychological factors mediated 25.5% of this association. Both sexual and physical/emotional abuse, were independently associated with post-COVID conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
In this prospective study of 2851 participants, childhood abuse was significantly associated with increased risk of post-COVID conditions. Biological pathways connecting childhood abuse with subsequent risk of post-COVID conditions should be investigated.

Link | Paywall (Brain, Behavior, and Immunity)

 

Not a psychosomatic paper in the sense of what we typically see. So posting in this main LC forum.

 

End-points and phenotypes most definitely, but could there be commonalities in terms of the inflammatory response? ME has been likened to a "slow-burn sepsis" (Ron Davis as I recall, but maybe others) and eg NETosis is being investigated in both.

A recent example (albeit in mice) might be Post-COVID pulmonary injury in K18-hACE2 mice shows persistent neutrophils and neutrophil extracellular trap formation (2024, Immunity, Inflammation and Disease)

 

The simple explanation is that people who tend to report bad stuff tend to report bad stuff.
The stories about 'inflammation' are meaningless - other than maybe as markers of co-morbidities likely associated with deprivation.
This 'mediation' analysis is completely bogus.

Indeed.

 

Me has been likened to a lot of things. What on earth would 'Slow-burn sepsis' mean? Immunology is awash with garbage concepts - the most recent one being NETosis. It literally is garbage - the garbage of dead neutrophils. As far as I have been able to establish listening to my colleagues chant mantras about it, it is as misconceived as 'free radical damage' was forty years ago, or 'lysosomal instability' twenty years before that.

 

42% increase in RELATIVE risk. These sorts of weak associations are found between childhood abuse and all sorts of medical conditions including obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc. There's a huge number of papers on this topic. The problem is that when these sorts of papers are published on LC, ME/CFS, FND and such contested illnesses, ignorant doctors who don't understand risk ratios and odds ratios misinterpret risk factors for cause. This is why you get bizarre questions from doctors looking for gotcha evidence of childhood "trauma" where normal life events like parental divorce etc. are spun into a disease-causing mechanism in their stupid little letters.

 

They defined 'post-Covid conditions' as 'COVID–19–related symptoms lasting 4 weeks or longer', which will apply to so many people that you can find almost anything you want in the dataset.