The number of patients suffering from mental illnesses is dramatically rising in numbers now. To learn more about its causes, treatments, medications, and vaccines that could help a lot of people in the future, experts from all parts of the globe are currently working hand in hand to address this health issue.
Just recently, a group of researchers was able to dig deep into the issue and discovered the link between childhood poverty and problems to greater risk for anxiety and depression, as reported in News 18. The details of the study were published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
According to the experts behind the study, a person's economic status and painful and traumatic events while he was still a child can have a direct relation to his risk of having depression and anxiety as he grows old. The results of the study reveal how being poor economically and experiencing such negative events during the early years in life can mold one person's personality, especially when it comes to brain maturation and development.
"The findings underscore the need to pay attention to the environment in which the child grows," explains Raquel E. Gur, the study's lead author and, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. "Poverty and trauma have strong associations with behavior and brain development, and the effects are much more pervasive than previously believed," she added.
About 9,000 people ages 8 to 21 years old were asked to participate in the study. At the end of the course, the team discovered that every memory of trauma and poverty the participants have encountered during their younger years had created a negative impact to their psychological health, which could lead to several brain structure abnormalities, psychiatric symptoms, and cognitive performance. The severity of the effects of these memories is unexpectedly large that even just the smallest event has increased their psychological condition.
Furthermore, the study also revealed that though these factors affect both males and females directly, experts say the results showed how females are more vulnerable to risk than their counterpart. This result is said to be caused by the difference in hormones among the two genders.
Though there is still insufficient information about the whereabouts of mental illnesses especially regarding its treatment, medications, causes, and vaccines, as reported by the WebMD, the recent discovery at least shed a small light to the problem. The information gathered can already be used to guard the future generation against experiencing such.
