what we found in the a study involving
seventeen and a half thousand middle
class adults was that life experiences
in childhood that are lost in time and
then further protected by shame and by
secrecy and by social taboos against
inquiry into certain realms of human
experience that those life experiences
play out powerfully and proportionately
a half century later in terms of
emotional state in terms of biomedical
disease in terms of life expectancy in
1985 I first became interested in
developmental life experiences and early
childhood really by accident in the
major obesity program we were running a
young woman came into the program she
was 28 years old and weighed 408 asked
us if we could help her with her problem
and in 51 weeks took her from 408 to 132
and thought well you know my god we've
got this problem licked this is going to
be a world-famous department here she
maintained her weight at 132 for several
weeks and then in one three-week period
regained 37 pounds in three weeks which
I had not previously conceived as being
physiologically possible that was
triggered by being sexually
propositioned at work by a much older
man as she described him and in short
order she was back over 400 pounds
faster than she had lost the weight I
remember asking her why the extreme
response after initially claiming not to
have any understanding of why the
extreme response ultimately she told me
of a lengthy incest history with her
grandfather from age 10 to age 21
ultimately it turned out that 55% of the
people in our obesity program
acknowledged the history of childhood
sexual abuse I mean that obviously is
not the only issue going on but it was
where we began and as we went down that
trail then we discovered other forms of
abuse also growing up in massively
dysfunctional households etc and the ACE
study was really designed to see whether
these things existed at all in a general
population and if so how did they play
out over time we studied ten categories
of adverse life experience that were
chosen because of their prevalence in
the weight program childhood sexual
abuse heavy-duty childhood physical
abuse I'm not talking spanking major
emotional abuse record humiliation two
categories of neglect growing up in a
home where one of the members of the
household was chronically depressed
suicidal mentally ill or in the State
Hospital growing up in a home without
both biological parents growing up in a
home where one of the members of your
household was alcoholic or a drug user
growing up in a home where mother was
beaten growing up in a home where one of
the members of your household was
imprisoned during your childhood or
adolescence those with the ten
categories in a middle-class population
one in 11 people has experienced six or
more of those adverse life experiences
in childhood so this is very common
totally unrecognized
it was difficult for us to accept their
cominis but on the other hand these are
issues that most people never touch and
so who would know without routinely
asking but in a so-called ace score six
experiencing any six of the ten
categories that we studied that person
was 4,600 percent more likely to become
an IV drug user than a person who had
experienced none of those 10 categories
okay now you know you think you read in
the newspaper the latest cancer scare of
the week prostate cancer or breast
cancer increases 30% and everyone goes
nuts I'm talking four thousand six
hundred percent increase the same same a
score of six produces a likelihood of
attempting suicide that is between three
thousand one hundred and five thousand
percent greater than the likelihood of
suicide attempts in someone with none of
those life experiences so the power of
this relationship is enormous so
ultimately the question arises how do
life experiences and childhood end up
with disease states a half-century later
there are at least two big categories to
account for that one is through the use
of various coping devices one smokes to
feel better one over eats to feel better
one drinks to relax etc and those things
carried out in heavy amounts have major
destructive patterns even though they
may be immediately beneficial the other
broad category has to do with the effect
of chronic major on relieve stress on
the workings of one's brain and central
nervous system in recent years this is
relatively new it's become clear that
chronic major unrelieved stress can
produce the release
of pro-inflammatory chemicals in a
person's body and also can suppress
immune system function of the ten
categories that we studied any six of
them produces a shortening and life
expectancy of almost twenty years the
magnitude of this problem is so huge and
the complexity of dealing with it after
the fact is so huge that realistically
the only serious approach is going to
have to involve primary prevention no
one knows how to do that but it's the
right question to focus on