Offspring of parents who were separated and not speaking to one another have reduced resistance to the common cold as adults

Offspring of parents who were separated and not speaking to one another have reduced resistance to the common cold as adults. By Michael L. M. Murphy, Sheldon Cohen, Denise Janicki-Deverts, and William J. Doyle
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, http://www.pnas.org/content/114/25/6515.abstract

Significance: Adults whose parents separated during childhood are at increased risk for poorer health, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Furthermore, increasing evidence suggests that aspects of the family environment following parental separation better predict a child’s adjustment than the separation itself. Using a viral challenge study, we found that adults whose parents separated but remained on speaking terms during childhood were no more likely to develop a cold when exposed to a cold-causing virus than adults from intact childhood families. However, adults whose parents separated and did not speak to each other during childhood were more than three times as likely to develop a cold following viral exposure. This increased risk was attributed to heightened inflammation in response to infection.

Abstract: Exposure to parental separation or divorce during childhood has been associated with an increased risk for physical morbidity during adulthood. Here we tested the hypothesis that this association is primarily attributable to separated parents who do not communicate with each other. We also examined whether early exposure to separated parents in conflict is associated with greater viral-induced inflammatory response in adulthood and in turn with increased susceptibility to viral-induced upper respiratory disease. After assessment of their parents’ relationship during their childhood, 201 healthy volunteers, age 18–55 y, were quarantined, experimentally exposed to a virus that causes a common cold, and monitored for 5 d for the development of a respiratory illness. Monitoring included daily assessments of viral-specific infection, objective markers of illness, and local production of proinflammatory cytokines. Adults whose parents lived apart and never spoke during their childhood were more than three times as likely to develop a cold when exposed to the upper respiratory virus than adults from intact families. Conversely, individuals whose parents were separated but communicated with each other showed no increase in risk compared with those from intact families. These differences persisted in analyses adjusted for potentially confounding variables (demographics, current socioeconomic status, body mass index, season, baseline immunity to the challenge virus, affectivity, and childhood socioeconomic status). Mediation analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that greater susceptibility to respiratory infectious illness among the offspring of noncommunicating parents was attributable to a greater local proinflammatory response to infection.