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Children who lacked parental love, affection, and care can suffer lifelong health problems, a new study reveals.

A new study led by UCLA examines the ill effect of childhood abuse for the very first time. The study even reveals that negative early life experiences can even lead to cardiovascular disease.

“Our findings suggest that there may be a way to reduce the impact abuse has, at least in terms of physical health,” said Judith E. Carroll, a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA, and the study’s lead author, according to Daily Mail.

“If the child has love from parental figures they may be more protected from the impact of abuse on adult biological risk for health problems than those who don’t have that loving adult in their life,” Carroll later added.

Researchers measured around 18 biological markers of health risk to analyze if they were at higher biological risk for disease. These included heart rate, stress hormone, blood pressure, inflammation, waist circumference etc.

"Our findings highlight the extent to which these early childhood experiences are associated with evidence of increased biological risks across nearly all of the body’s major regulatory systems," said Teresa Seeman according to Daily Mail who is a professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine and of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA.

"It is our hope that this will encourage public policy support for early interventions," Carroll said.