A 35-Year Follow-up of the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study
“91% percent of participants who did not perceive themselves to have had a warm relationship with their mothers (assessed during college) had diagnosed diseases in midlife (including coronary artery disease, hypertension, duodenal ulcer, and alcoholism), as compared to 45% of participants who perceived themselves to have had a warm relationship with their mothers. A similar association between perceived warmth and closeness and future illness was obtained for fathers.”
“82% of the participants who reported tolerant or strained relationships with their fathers had significant health issues in midlife, compared to 50% of those who had warm or close relationships with their fathers.
If participants had strained relationships with both parents, the results were startling: 100 percent had significant health issues, versus 47 percent of those who described their relationships with their parents as being warm and close.
Another study, conducted at John Hopins University, followed 1,100 male medical students for fifty years and found that cancer rates correlated closely with the degree of distance a participant felt toward a parent.”