Abstract Body: Background: There is a high prevalence of childhood maltreatment (CM) among adults with cardiometabolic diseases. However, there is limited information available on the specific patterns of association between CM (cumulative CM, subtype, threat- and deprivation-based CM and co-occurrence) with cardiometabolic health indicators in young adults.
Aims: To investigate the patterns of association between CM and cardiometabolic health indicators, including the triglyceride glucose (TyG) index and the TyG-body mass index (TyG-BMI), in a sex-specific manner among young adults.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 817 young adults from the University Student Cohort in Anhui Province, conducted in September 2022. Spearman correlations and linear regressions were used to test the association of cumulative CM, five subtypes of CM - physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect - as well as the threat- and deprivation-based CM and co-occurrence (two or more subtypes of CM) with respect to the TyG index and the TyG-BMI index, in a sex-specific analysis.
Results: Cumulative CM was associated with TyG index ( β = 0.06, 95% CI = 0.00 - 0.12). In contrast, none of the CM variables was associated with TyG-BMI index. We revealed profound sex-specific differences, with associations between cumulative CM and TyG index ( β = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.01 - 0.18), between emotional neglect and TyG index ( β = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.00 - 0.20), and between deprivation-based CM and TyG index ( β = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.00 - 0.18) in men only. Also, only men showed an association between deprivation-based CM and TyG-BMI index ( β = 3.06, 95% CI = 0.35 - 5.77).
Conclusions: This study indicates that cumulative CM, emotional neglect and deprivation-based CM may be associated with poorer cardiometabolic health in young adults, with these associations being much stronger in men than in women.