Study calls parental care key factor in child’s health

A new study has found that children raised in poverty were less likely to develop certain chronic diseases in adulthood if they had loving, attentive mothers from a young age.

Disadvantaged children grow up with stresses that can hurt their physical development and make them vulnerable to infection and disease for the rest of their lives. In adulthood, this often leads to metabolic syndrome — high blood pressure, impaired regulation of blood sugar and fats, fat around the waist — that are precursors to diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

Yet a significant minority of poor children avoid these negative outcomes as adults, and a team of researchers led by psychologist Gregory Miller at the University of British Columbia wanted to know why. So they looked at two common explanations, upward mobility and early parental nurturing to see if they related to metabolic problems later in life.

Read the whole story: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette