Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Male child sexual abuse victims at higher heart attack risk

 I found this study on the internet and thought I would be good to post it on this blog. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120906123240.htm
I have posted several other articles and studies that have to do with the long term effects of child sexual abuse. This study showed that:

 "Men who reported they were sexually abused during childhood were particularly vulnerable to having a heart attack later in life,"

It continues to sadden me that those of us who have survived this horrible epidemic have to deal with it's consequences indefinitely. Yet those who commit this terrible crime and are held accountable through the court system, don't like that they have to be labeled as a sexual offender. They especially hate having to be on the sexual offender registry. I say if you harm a child irreparably you should be held accountable for that. If that means you have a permanent label then you should have thought about that prior to sexually abusing a child. I usually don't get off on a rant like this but there are times I get fed up with those who complain that they served their time so they shouldn't have to be on the SOR. There is a whole movement to abolish the SOR. They claim they are violated because they have to be a registered sex offender. That their human rights have been irreparably harmed. I especially love to read how those in the movement to abolish the SOR are against child abuse. I laugh when I read that because if this were true they would be doing things to make children safe. They would believe that 93% of child who are sexually abused know their abuser. They would believe that before a child sexual offender gets caught they have abused up to 100 times. This means they have viewed child sexual abuse media or touched a child, or groomed a child, etc. before they get caught. If they meant that child abuse was wrong they wouldn't call those who speak out against this epidemic "perpetual victims."

What they wouldn't do is to claim that the SOR doesn't work because those who get caught are first time offenders. As I have stated previously this is inaccurate as most offenders abuse at least 100 times before they get caught. Just because someone hasn't gotten caught doesn't mean they haven't harmed a child previously. If they would read the statistics and studies they may awakened to this reality. They don't want to be in my opinion because then their argument wouldn't hold water. Sorry for the rant just disgusted. Rosie


Childhood Sexual Abuse Linked to Later Heart Attacks in Men


ScienceDaily (Sep. 6, 2012) — Men who experienced childhood sexual abuse are three times more likely to have a heart attack than men who were not sexually abused as children, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto. The researchers found no association between childhood sexual abuse and heart attacks among women.


In a paper published online this week in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, investigators examined gender-specific differences in a representative sample of 5095 men and 7768 women aged 18 and over, drawn from the Center for Disease Control's 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. A total of 57 men and 154 women reported being sexually abused by someone close to them before they turned 18 and 377 men and 285 women said that a doctor, nurse or other health professional had diagnosed them with a heart attack or myocardial infarction. The study was co-authored by four graduate students at the University of Toronto, Raluca Bejan, John Hunter, Tamara Grundland and Sarah Brennenstuhl.
"Men who reported they were sexually abused during childhood were particularly vulnerable to having a heart attack later in life," says lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Professor and Sandra Rotman Chair at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "We had expected that the abuse-heart attack link would be due to unhealthy behaviors in sexual abuse survivors, such as higher rates of alcohol use or smoking, or increased levels of general stress and poverty in adulthood when compared to non-abused males. However, we adjusted statistically for 15 potential risk factors for heart attack, including age, race, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity, diabetes mellitus, education level and household income, and still found a three-fold risk of heart attack."
Co-author and PhD candidate Sarah Brennenstuhl notes that, "It is unclear why sexually abused men, but not women, experienced higher odds of heart attack; however, the results suggest that the pathways linking childhood sexual abuse to physical health outcomes in later life may be gender-specific. For example, it is possible that females adopt different coping strategies than males as women are more likely to get the support and counselling needed to deal with their sexual abuse."
"These findings need to be replicated in future scientific studies before we can say anything definitive about this link," cautions Fuller-Thomson. "But if other researchers find a similar association, one possible explanation is that adverse child experiences become biologically embedded in the way individuals react to stress throughout their life, particularly with respect to the production of cortisol, the hormone associated with the "fight-or-flight" response. Cortisol is also implicated in the development of cardiovascular diseases.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

No comments:

Post a Comment