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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Are kids who suffer from abuse at higher risk of health problems?
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:00
	Publish Date:		2017-01-08 18:00:00
	Description:		Children who suffer from emotional or physical abuse are at higher risk of developing health problems, but scientists are unclear about how to reverse these harmful effects. So, this is the focus of a new study by Nicole Bush, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco. "One of our goals was to look across the variety of systems to see for example whether we can improve immune functioning, cortisol stress hormone level, telomere lengths and DNA methylation profiles." Bush hopes to achieve this with psychotherapy, which could be very effective for mental and physical health. And studies have proven just that. "There has been a recent meta-analysis that suggests we can improve children's cortisol functioning through intervention after adversity and we can get them to return to normal levels." And less stress means fewer health problems in the future, including obesity, depression and diabetes, which is widespread among young Americans.
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