Face the ACEs

“ The foundations of lifelong health
are built in childhood

Your health is on the line

Recently, researchers from leading health organizations^[1] have found that there are very strong links between (often unnoticed) adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the toxic stress they generate, and extensive long-term negative health effects within the population.

Being exposed to a wide range of adverse childhood experiences can ultimately be a significant contributing factor of early death, through having negatively influenced the physiological, mental, and social wellbeing of a person throughout a lifetime.

For example, people who have experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer than people who haven't.^[2]

Having been exposed to 6 or more ACEs results in a life expectancy that's as much as 20 years lower than people who have been exposed to none.^[3]

For those exposed to a narrower range of ACEs - or being less exposed and better supported - the consequences may be less lethal, but none the less still very severe throughout a lifetime.

ACEs are generally regarded as significant factors in the development of poor mental and physiological health coping mechanisms, in difficulties with building social support networks, in challenges completing school and further education, in the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases - and much more.

As such, the effects of ACEs can be passed down through generations by the ongoing presence of social, mental, or physiological issues within families.

Even more profoundly, science is accumulating evidence that adverse childhood effects may have an epigenetic impact, thus potentially affecting the DNA passed on from generation to generation.^[4]

Didn't we know this?

Yes and no.

Before the ACE study was conducted there had been a lot of research into the effects of genetics, environment, and upbringing on long-term health, wealth, social coherence (and other such topics) which pointed in this direction.

However, the effects of adverse childhood effects weren't clear and well-understood before the results of the ACE study arrived - and the results were pretty shocking in their extent and influence.

What can you do?

If you have been exposed to one or more adverse childhood effects (about 60% of Californians have been exposed to at least one), you can do a lot to alleviate the effects of them on your life.

By gaining more knowledge about ACEs, and by building mental and physical resiliency, you can gain the skills needed to minimize the prevalence of ACEs and their effects on your own life - and on the life of your children.

» Read more on how to beat the ACEs on the page "Beat the ACEs" on this website.

What is being done?

As a result of the extensive research into the topic of ACEs (which has primarily taken place in the United States), a lot of goverment, non-profit, and private organizations are beginning to implement pediatric initiatives that seek to lessen children's exposure to ACEs and to alleviate the effects in adults who have experienced them. Often these initatives have very good results.

In Scandinavia (Northern Europe), which has for a long time had a strong societal focus on supporting children's needs, on narrowing social and wealth gap through wealth distribution, free healthcare and free education services, we see that there has not been the same public discussion on the results of the ACE study.

This is especially important as many of the ACEs occur not as the direct result of the presence or lack of a certain level of societal welfare, but as the result of social, mental, and somatic problems within a family leading to significant toxic stress. Some of these problems can, in turn, be founded in adverse socioeconomic factors, but good parenting - or the lack of it - remains one of the biggest factors determining the level of toxic stress experienced by the child, regardless of socioeconomic factors.

Additionally, lifestyle and mental problems like stress, depression, and anxiety is on the rise these years across the world, affecting millions of children and adults alike. Having experienced toxic stress - and much likely not having had the opportunities to develop very strong and healthy stress-coping skills - handling other forms of stress can become especially challenging to people with adverse childhood experiences.

Therefore, we believe that curating and spreading knowledge about the causes and effects of ACEs can help people individually, and society as a whole, in developing better ways of coping, caring, and helping, thus minimizing the prevalence and spread of ACEs.

Further resources

Footnotes