14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new scientific study, it would appear that parents who abuse their children put the latter at an increased risk of developing cancer later on in life. The study that confirms this link was conducted by experts at the Purdue University.
This correlation was found to be strongest in certain scenarios, such as for example when mothers abuse daughters, and fathers abuse sons. Cross-gender abuse seems to be tied to cancer development to a lesser extent, PsychCentral reports.
“People who were frequently emotionally or physically abused by their parents were more likely to have cancer in adulthood […] Overall, the more frequent and intense the abuse, the more it elevated the cancer risk,” the research team writes in the latest online issue of the Journal of Aging and Health.
The Purdue experts say that childhood abuse should be from now on listed as an environmental risk factor for the development of cancer, and treated as such by oncologists and other healthcare professionals.