Researchers from the University of Toronto found an association between childhood sexual abuse and heart attacks in men while no such link was observed among women.
"Men who reported they were sexually abused during childhood were particularly vulnerable to having a heart attack later in life," lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, said.
The study examined gender-specific differences in a representative sample of 5,095 men and 7,768 women aged 18 and over, drawn from the Center for Disease Control's 2010 Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance Survey.
A total of 57 men and 154 women reported being sexually abused by someone close to them before they turned 18 and 377 men and 285 women said that a doctor, nurse or other health professional had diagnosed them with a heart attack or myocardial infarction.
"We had expected that the abuse-heart attack link would be due to unhealthy behaviours in sexual abuse survivors, such as higher rates of alcohol use or smoking, or increased levels of general stress and poverty in adulthood when compared to non-abused males," Fuller-Thomson said in a statement.
"However, we adjusted statistically for 15 potential risk factors for heart attack, including age, race, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity, diabetes mellitus, education level and household income, and still found a three-fold risk of heart attack," Fuller-Thomson added.
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"It is unclear why sexually abused men, but not women, experienced higher odds of heart attack; however, the results suggest that the pathways linking childhood sexual abuse to physical health outcomes in later life may be gender-specific," co-author Sarah Brennenstuhl, said.
"It is possible that females adopt different coping strategies than males as women are more likely to get the support and counselling needed to deal with their sexual abuse," Brennenstuhl said.
The study was published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.