Review Paper on the Effect of Emotionally Neglectful Childhood on Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Adulthood

Abstract

The study aims to understand how one of the adverse childhood experiences called emotional neglect could contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) in adulthood. Amongst the contributory psychological factors of having IBD is said to be depression and anxiety which might be due to childhood adversity that occurs at a time that is crucial for the development of neurobiological and immunological factors. It has been hypothesized that specific life stress events may contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) (Hana Bednarikova et al, 2021). The specific changes in brain functioning might directly or indirectly affect the level of brain chemicals that helps in immune functioning, therefore, leading to an imbalance in the gut-brain axis. The association between ACE and IBDs is also shown to be bidirectional (Kelcie Witges et al., 2019). One of the reasons for the study is the increasing prevalence of IBD globally. According to a survey done by S Altab et al., the global prevalence of IBD cases has increased by 85.1% from 1990 to 2017. Additionally, the impact of emotional neglect in childhood on these diseases is still being researched. Therefore, the following review paper will try to focus on the direct relationship between emotionally neglectful childhood and inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood.