Childhood maltreatment and adult blood pressure-based outcomes: age- and sex-specific associations in the German National Cohort (NAKO).

Authors

Tara Alissa Thielcke, Johanna Klinger-König, Sylvia Stracke, Klaus Berger, Stefanie Castell, Karin Halina Greiser, Volker Harth, Margit Heier, André Karch, Thomas Keil, Lilian Krist, Michael Leitzmann, Seraina Lerch, Marcello Ricardo Paulista Markus, Claudia Meinke-Franze, Rafael Mikolajczyk, Ilais Moreno Velásquez, Nadia Obi, Tobias Pischon, Carsten Oliver Schmidt, Sabine Schipf, Ulrike Siewert-Markus, Henry Völzke, Margarethe Woeckel, Hans J Grabe, Till Ittermann, Philipp Töpfer

Published in

BMC public health. Volume 26. Issue 1. Sep 09, 2026. Epub Sep 09, 2026.

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is associated with adult cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure (BP), key markers of CVD risk, exhibit age- and sex-dependent variability, which was insufficiently accounted for in previous studies on the CM-BP relationship. This study therefore aimed to assess age- and sex-specific associations between CM and adult BP-based outcomes and hypertension using cross-sectional data from the population based German National Cohort (NAKO).
Complete data were available for 150,983 participants (49.3% female), who took part in the baseline assessment between 2014 and 2019. CM was assessed via the Childhood Trauma Screener (CTS). Resting BP was assessed using a standardized procedure. Hypertension was defined as either SBP ≥ 140 mmHg or DBP ≥ 90 mmHg or intake of antihypertensive medication. Age- and sex-stratified multivariable regression models estimated age- and sex-specific associations between CM and BP-based markers and sex-stratified logistic regression models were calculated for hypertension as the outcome.
A pattern of inverse associations between CTS sum score (CTS_SUM) and BP markers emerged. Compared to their non-exposed counterparts, females (OR = 0.87, 95%-CI: 0.80; 0.94) but not males (OR = 1.01, 95%-CI: 0.91; 1.13) with high cumulative CM exposure (i.e., ≥ 3 CM categories) had lower odds of hypertension. Age-dependent inverse associations between CTS_SUM and BP markers revealed sex-specific patterns. The age- and sex-dependent inverse associations of CM with BP markers were more consistent for the abuse vs. neglect subscales.
The association between CM and BP revealed age- and sex-dependent patterns, highlighting the complexity of physical consequences in adulthood associated with CM.

PMID:
42811308
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 30 Sep 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.