{"id":386649,"date":"2026-04-19T02:16:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/386649\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:16:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:16:57","slug":"higher-cvd-risk-in-parents-of-neurodivergent-children-emj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/386649\/","title":{"rendered":"Higher CVD Risk in Parents of Neurodivergent Children \u2013 EMJ"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARENTS of children with common\u00a0neurodevelopmental\u00a0disorders<\/a>\u00a0(NDD)\u00a0may face a higher risk of\u00a0cardiovascular disease<\/a>\u00a0(CVD) than parents of children without diagnoses, a 2026\u00a0Swedish\u00a0cohort study of more than\u00a02 million people\u00a0has found.1\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calculating Risk\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers collected data from\u00a0a study sample of 1,180,457 mothers and\u00a0882,619 fathers, with a mean follow-up of 16 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the population,\u00a0187,951 mothers and 143,486 fathers had at least\u00a0one\u00a0child diagnosed with\u00a0intellectual disability,\u00a0autism spectrum disorder<\/a>,\u00a0or\u00a0attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mothers who had children with diagnosed NDDs had a\u00a0hazard ratio of 1.27. The value for fathers was 1.20, signalling a greater risk of parental CVD\u00a0among maternal figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CVD risk also progressively increased with the number of affected children.\u00a0Among mothers,\u00a0the hazard ratios\u00a0for CVD risk were\u00a01.22, 1.39, and 1.66 for one, two, and three or more children with NDDs, respectively.\u00a0Among fathers, the corresponding hazard ratios were\u00a01.16, 1.33, and 1.50.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0The risk of CVD also tended to be greater if the affected child also had comorbid conditions and results\u00a0stayed consistent across the sibling comparison analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Potential Explanation for the Association\u00a0<\/p>\n

Previous\u00a0studies of parents of children with NDDs have found that they face higher levels of stress and burnout.2\u00a0<\/p>\n

This reflects the chronic nature of their broad caregiving responsibilities, authors said, from coordinating treatment\u00a0and dealing with unexpected emergencies, to advocating for their child and providing\u00a0additional\u00a0educational support.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers also pointed towards the\u00a0psychological stress associated with a child\u2019s diagnosis and the reallocation of family resources to provide for any\u00a0necessary\u00a0care\u00a0as potential explanations for the heighted parental strain.2,3\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This,\u00a0they\u00a0said,\u00a0can trigger stress-related\u00a0biological processes that could then lead to\u00a0adverse cardiometabolic changes.3\u00a0<\/p>\n

Implications for\u00a0Clinical Care\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers noted that the effect sizes were small but nonetheless noteworthy, due to the\u00a0high prevalence of NDDs and\u00a0associated\u00a0public health relevance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u00a0called for the need for early CVD monitoring in parents of children with NDDs, if findings are affirmed by future studies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

References\u00a0<\/p>\n

1\u00a0Wang H et al. Risk of cardiovascular disease in parents of children diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders. JAMA\u00a0Pediatr.\u00a02026;DOI:jamapediatrics.2026.0857.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2\u00a0Craig F et al.\u00a0Parenting stress among parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Psychiatry Res.\u00a02016;242:121-129.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

3\u00a0Vaccarino V, Bremner JD. Stress and cardiovascular disease: an update. Nat Rev\u00a0Cardiol. 2024;21(9):603-616.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Featured image:\u00a0Daisy\u00a0Daisy\u00a0on Adobe Stock\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARENTS of children with common\u00a0neurodevelopmental\u00a0disorders\u00a0(NDD)\u00a0may face a higher risk of\u00a0cardiovascular disease\u00a0(CVD) than parents of children without diagnoses, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-386649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}