Childhood maltreatment may increase risk of incident HF in dose-dependent manner

The results of the study are:

• A total of 153 287 adults were included.
• Over a median of 12.2 years of follow-up, 2352 participants had incident heart failure.
• Childhood maltreatment was associated with a greater risk of incident heart failure in a dose-response manner.
• One additional type of childhood maltreatment was associated with a 15% increase in the risk of developing heart failure
• There was no statistically significant interaction between genetic risk and childhood maltreatment (Pinteraction=0.218).
• Among participants with high genetic risk, those with 3 to 5 types of childhood maltreatment had a double hazard of developing heart failure when taking those without any childhood maltreatment as the reference.

Thus, irrespective of genetic risk for heart failure, childhood maltreatment was associated with an increased risk of incident heart failure in a dose-dependent manner.

Reference:

Liang YY MD, PhD, Ai S, Weng F, Feng H, Yang L, He Z, Xue H, Zhou M, Shu X, Chen Y, Ma H, Guo L, Geng Q, Zhang J. Associations of Childhood Maltreatment and Genetic Risks With Incident Heart Failure in Later Life. J Am Heart Assoc. 2022 Oct 5:e026536. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.122.026536. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36196897.