It is still not clear how the experience of being bullied in childhood translates into long-lasting health problems. A new US study has found that victims of bullying have high levels of a protein in their bloodstream that is associated with fighting off an infection – even into early adulthood. This finding may help understand further the association between childhood bullying victimisation and poor health outcomes later.
Research has consistently shown that young victims of bullying show difficulties including symptoms of anxiety, depression and also conduct problems and psychotic symptoms. These problems related to children’s mental health can persist even after the bullying has stopped, sometimes up until mid-life.
There are some hypotheses that bullying victimisation is a form of “toxic stress” that can have an impact on physiological responses to childhood adversity. In turn, these responses may help explain why some victims develop health problems.
Mental and physical health problems are often related and although young children are generally healthy, research has started to show that bullied children tend to become adults with health problems.
One such mechanism is the inflammatory response, measured by the release in the bloodstream of a protein called C-reactive protein (CRP). High levels of CRP is a generic response that indicates that the body is either fighting an infectious agent, reacting to an injury or responding to a chronic condition such as arthritis.
Research has shown that CRP can also be elevated among people who experienced maltreatment by an adult in their childhood. This suggests that the body reacts in a similar way to “toxic stress” as it does to an infection.