Childhood trauma, including abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction, can be so severe or pervasive that it can change a person's physiology and put them at greater risk for diseases as adults, says San Francisco pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris.
"People who are exposed in very high doses have triple the lifetime risk of heart disease and lung cancer and a 20-year difference in life expectancy," Dr. Burke Harris told the audience at TEDMED 2014. "And yet, doctors today are not trained in routine screening or treatment."
[For more of this story, written by Marcia Frellick, go to http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/831925]
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