TUESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- For women, childhood abuse correlates with significantly higher odds of thyroid conditions in adulthood, according to a study published online July 29 in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.
Esme Fuller-Thomson, Ph.D., from the University of Toronto, and colleagues analyzed data from a regional subsample of 13,070 participants from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey to explore the independent effect of childhood physical abuse (CPA) on thyroid conditions in adulthood. Analyses were controlled for age and race, and for five clusters of variables: childhood stressors, health behaviors, general stress levels, mental health, and socioeconomic status.
The researchers found that, for men, there was no significant association between childhood abuse and thyroid conditions. For women, CPA correlated with increased odds of thyroid conditions, independent of a wide range of factors. Abused women had significant, 40 percent, increased odds of thyroid conditions compared with their non-abused peers, in a fully adjusted model.
"This study found that women reporting CPA had consistently higher odds of thyroid conditions when controlling for a wide range of potential explanatory factors," the authors write. "Future studies are needed to help understand the apparent gender differences in the relationship between CPA and thyroid disorders."
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