Association Between Exposure to Childhood and Lifetime Traumatic Events and Lifetime Pathological Gambling in a Twin Cohort

Abstract

The present study seeks to estimate the strength of the association between exposure to lifetime traumatic events and gambling problems while accounting for the potential contribution of psychiatric disorders, genetic factors, and family environmental influences. In 2002, structured diagnostic interviews were conducted with 1675 male twins to obtain data on exposure to traumatic events and pathological gambling. Multinomial regression tested for associations between each traumatic event and three levels of problem gambling (1-2 symptoms, at risk; 3-4 symptoms, problem gambling, and 5 or more symptoms, pathological gambling). Analyses of data from twin pairs discordant for gambling behavior controlled for genetic and family environmental factors. After adjustment for covariates, child abuse (relative risk [RR]=2.31), child neglect (RR=5.53), witnessing someone badly hurt or killed (RR=2.83), and physical attack (RR=3.39) were associated with pathological gambling. Genetic and family environmental factors significantly contributed to the association between exposure to traumatic events and one or more symptoms of problem gambling. Exposure to childhood and lifetime traumatic events are significantly associated with problem and pathological gambling. These associations are partially accounted for by psychiatric covariates and genetic and family environmental factors.

The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress

“…54 The adoption of unhealthy lifestyles as a coping mechanism might also explain why higher ACE exposures are associated with tobacco use, illicit drug abuse, obesity, and promiscuity, 55,56 as well as why the risk of pathologic gambling is increased in adults who were maltreated as children. 57 Adolescents and adults who manifest higher rates of risk-taking behaviors are also more likely to have trouble maintaining supportive social networks and are at higher risk of school failure, gang membership, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, violent crime, incarceration, and becoming single parents. Furthermore, adults in this high-risk group who become parents themselves are less likely to be able to provide the kind of stable and supportive relationships that are needed to protect their children from the damages of toxic stress.…”

Home Visiting and the Biology of Toxic Stress: Opportunities to Address Early Childhood Adversity

“…4,19,[58][59][60] Finally, behavioral allostasis, or the adoption of potentially maladaptive behaviors to deal or cope with chronic stress, begins to explain the association between childhood adversity and unhealthy lifestyles, like alcohol, tobacco, and substance abuse, promiscuity, gambling, and obesity. 4,6,61 Taken together, these 3 general classes of altered developmental outcomes (unhealthy lifestyles, fractured social networks, and changes in immune function) contribute to the development of noncommunicable diseases and encompass many of the morbidities associated epidemiologically with childhood adversity. 4,6 …”

Leveraging the biology of adversity to address the roots of disparities in health and development

“…At the behavioral level, there is extensive evidence of a strong link between early adversity and a variety of health-threatening lifestyles in the adolescent and adult years (33)(34)(35). At the biological level, there is growing documentation of the extent to which the cumulative burden of excessive stress activation over time (which can result from chronic neglect as much as from overt abuse), as well as the timing of specific environmental insults during sensitive developmental periods (e.g., from prenatal alcohol exposure or significant thyroid hormone deficiency in infancy), can produce structural and/or functional disruptions that lead to a wide range of physical and mental impairments later in life (36)(37)(38)(39)(40).…”