Examining the relationships between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), cortisol, and inflammation among young adults

Kingston E Wong; Terrance J Wade; Jessy Moore; Ashley Marcellus; Danielle S Molnar; Deborah D O'Leary; Adam J MacNeil

doi:10.1016/j.bbih.2022.100516

Examining the relationships between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), cortisol, and inflammation among young adults

Brain Behav Immun Health. 2022 Sep 20:25:100516. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2022.100516. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Kingston E Wong¹, Terrance J Wade^{1

2

3}, Jessy Moore¹, Ashley Marcellus⁴, Danielle S Molnar², Deborah D O'Leary^{1

3}, Adam J MacNeil¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Sciences, Brock University, Canada.
² Department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University, Canada.
³ Brock-Niagara Centre for Health and Well-Being, Canada.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Nipissing University, Canada.

Abstract

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with dysregulation of inflammation and cortisol. The objectives of this study were to use principal component analysis to explore the inflammatory biomarker data to create inflammation composite variables; to examine the relationship between these composite measures of inflammation with ACEs and cortisol; and to assess whether these relationships were moderated by sex. The analysis included 232 young adults from the Niagara Longitudinal Heart Study (NLHS). After adjusting for covariates, higher exposure to ACEs significantly predicted higher low-grade inflammation. These results further support the use of multiple biomarkers to understand the complex relationships among ACEs, cortisol, and inflammation, which should be further examined in longitudinal studies to study biomarker trajectories.

Keywords: ACEs; Adverse childhood experiences; Biomarkers; Cortisol; Inflammation.