Is Childhood Trauma Linked to Autoimmune Disease? Here’s What the Research Is Showing

Have you ever heard that childhood trauma could be linked to autoimmune disease later in life? If your first thought was, Excuse me, what? Fair. That’s a pretty big connection to casually drop into a conversation, and it deserves more than a catchy headline and somebody on the internet confidently declaring, It’s your trauma.

Okay, but where’s the research? What did it actually find? And how far can we go before we’re making a leap the evidence hasn’t earned?

So let’s dig into childhood trauma, adversity, and autoimmune disease, including the research on childhood sexual abuse. We’ll look at the findings, the contradictions, and the questions that still don’t have tidy answers. Biology, apparently, has no interest in wrapping this up neatly for us.

You may notice a little less humor in this article than you’re used to from me. I’m talking about childhood trauma and illnesses that can affect people’s lives in significant ways, and I want to give that the care it deserves, especially when the research leaves so much unanswered. There’s still room for my usual commentary, but I’m letting the subject set the tone.

What Sent Me Down This Research Rabbit Hole?

I’ve always been interested in mental health and how it affects the body. Sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s, I came across research exploring a possible connection between childhood sexual abuse and autoimmune disease. That stayed with me, and over the years, I kept following the research.

But whenever I brought it up with mental health or medical professionals, those I spoke with didn’t seem aware of the possible connection or the research exploring it. I wanted to understand what researchers were finding, how much we could actually conclude, and whether they were getting any closer to explaining why some people with histories of childhood trauma develop autoimmune disease while others don’t. From what I’ve read so far, that question still seems to remain open.

So what’s brought me back to it is this: What does the research say about childhood trauma and adversity and autoimmune disease later in life?

What Is Autoimmune Disease?

Before I get too far down this rabbit hole, I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Because “autoimmune,” “inflammation,” and “immune system” get thrown around a lot, and sometimes the internet treats them like interchangeable words. They aren’t.

Your immune system is supposed to protect you from infections and other threats. With autoimmune disease, it mistakenly attacks your own healthy cells and tissues. The security team is going after the people who belong in the building. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we’re going to need you to check the guest list. NIEHS

“Autoimmune disease” also isn’t one diagnosis. It describes a group of conditions that can affect different parts of the body. Rheumatoid arthritis can affect the joints and other tissues, while Sjögren’s disease often affects the glands that keep your eyes and mouth moist. That matters for the question I’m exploring. I can’t take a finding about one condition and casually apply it to every other autoimmune disease. NIAMS

And here’s a distinction I want to keep clear throughout this article: inflammation does not automatically mean autoimmune disease. Inflammation is part of how your body responds to injury or infection. It can become harmful, but finding increased inflammation isn’t the same as finding an autoimmune disorder. If a study measures inflammation, that’s what I’m going to say it measures. We don’t get to upgrade the conclusion because it makes a more interesting headline. NIEHS

So why does the immune system start attacking healthy tissue? This is where I’d love to hand you a straightforward answer. Unfortunately, the research involves interactions among genes, the immune system, and environmental factors that scientists are still working to understand. That’s the picture I want to keep in mind as I look at where childhood trauma might fit. NIH MedlinePlus Magazine

What Does the Research Say About Childhood Trauma and Adversity?

I can’t tell you which paper first caught my attention. It’s been too long. But I remember the question that stayed with me: how might what happens to us in childhood show up in our physical health years later?

Researchers were exploring that question back in the 1990s. A 1993 study found that women who reported childhood abuse also reported more physical health problems and poorer overall health. Then, in 1998, the original Adverse Childhood Experiences study found associations between childhood adversity and several adult health conditions. Moeller et al., 1993; Felitti et al., 1998

Those studies weren’t establishing that childhood trauma causes autoimmune disease. They were examining a broader connection between childhood experiences and adult health. That broader question is what piqued my interest and eventually brought me to a more specific one: what does the research say about childhood trauma, including sexual abuse, and autoimmune disease?

Much of the research on that question examines several forms of childhood adversity together. You’ll see the term adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, throughout these studies, but what gets counted varies. It matters how each paper defines and measures those experiences. Dube et al., 2009

A 2025 study examined data from nearly 109,000 women in Iceland and the United Kingdom. Women who reported more categories of childhood adversity also had a higher prevalence of autoimmune disease. In other words, autoimmune disease was more common among women reporting more of those experiences. That pattern remained after researchers accounted for several other factors, including age, smoking, and income. But this main comparison looked at existing disease, so it cannot establish that childhood adversity caused it. Köhler-Forsberg et al., 2025

The findings also depend on which disease we’re talking about. A 2024 UK study compared more than 256,000 people with recorded childhood maltreatment with more than 712,000 comparison patients. It found higher rates of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis in the maltreatment group, but did not find statistically significant increases for multiple sclerosis or lupus. That doesn’t prove there is no connection with those conditions, but it does mean this particular study didn’t establish one. Snook et al., 2024

Then there’s the bigger-picture question: what happens when researchers put the studies together?

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis combined findings from 27 studies and found a small overall association between childhood adversity and autoimmune disease. But the results varied substantially, and 21 of those studies were judged to have a high risk of bias, meaning their methods could have distorted the findings. The authors specifically cautioned against over-interpreting the results. Jesuthasan et al., 2025

That part belongs in the conversation too. I take this research seriously, and I also want to be clear about what it can tell us. These studies identify patterns across groups of people. However, they don’t tell us why one particular person developed an autoimmune disease or establish that someone with a history of trauma will develop one. What they do give us is evidence of an association worth investigating, with important differences between studies and conditions.

That brings me back to the question that started this for me: what do we find when researchers look at childhood sexual abuse specifically? After reading all of this, I’m left asking: if researchers have been exploring the connection between childhood adversity and adult health for decades, why do we still have so many unanswered questions?

The research exists, but the differences between studies and the limitations within them make me want to see more rigorous, long-term research into this connection. Which experiences are associated with which autoimmune conditions? What might explain those associations? And what could a better understanding mean for prevention and care?

We shouldn’t draw conclusions the evidence can’t support. We shouldn’t stop at “we don’t know yet,” either. To me, that’s reason enough to keep investigating.

What About Childhood Sexual Abuse Specifically?

This was the question that first brought me here. But answering it means looking carefully at what each study actually measured. Findings about childhood adversity as a whole don’t automatically tell us what researchers found about sexual abuse specifically. Some studies have examined that distinction.

A 2022 Norwegian study followed nearly 78,000 women and identified 300 who developed multiple sclerosis. Women who reported childhood sexual abuse had a higher rate of developing MS during follow-up, even after researchers adjusted for several other factors. The adjusted hazard ratio was 1.65, often described as a 65% higher relative hazard. That does not mean 65% of survivors developed MS. It describes a difference between groups over time and does not establish that abuse caused the disease. Eid et al., 2022

The lupus research shows why we also need to make room for findings that don’t line up neatly.

A study of more than 36,000 participants in the Black Women’s Health Study found that women reporting two or more episodes of severe childhood sexual abuse had a higher rate of developing systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE. The adjusted estimate was approximately 2.5 times that of women reporting no childhood sexual abuse, although the uncertainty around that estimate was substantial. Cozier et al., 2021

But a separate study of more than 67,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II did not find a statistically significant association between childhood sexual abuse and lupus. It did find an association with higher levels of childhood physical and emotional abuse. Feldman et al., 2019

Both findings belong here.

I can’t take a study about physical and emotional abuse and present it as evidence about sexual abuse. And I can’t choose the study that supports the connection I’m curious about while leaving out the one that didn’t establish it. These studies involved different groups of women and measured abuse differently. Those differences matter when comparing the results, but they don’t give us a ready-made explanation for why the findings differ.

What we have is evidence that deserves further investigation, alongside uncertainty that deserves to be stated plainly. None of these findings can tell an individual survivor that abuse caused their illness or that an autoimmune diagnosis is waiting in their future. For me, the next question is how this connection might work. What biological pathways are researchers investigating, and how much do we actually know about them?

How Might Childhood Trauma Affect the Immune System?

Finding an association is one thing. However, explaining what might connect those experiences to illness is another. Researchers have been investigating how childhood adversity might influence the systems that regulate stress and inflammation. These are possible pieces of the explanation, not a proven sequence in which trauma inevitably becomes autoimmune disease.

When we encounter a threat, the body coordinates a response through the nervous system and hormones. One part of that response involves the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, usually shortened to the HPA axis. It helps regulate cortisol, a hormone involved in responding to stress and regulating inflammation.

A small study published in 2000 found differences in hormonal and cardiovascular responses to a laboratory stress test among women with histories of childhood physical or sexual abuse. The differences were particularly pronounced in women who also had current depression. That gives researchers something measurable to investigate. It does not establish a pathway from childhood abuse to autoimmune disease. Heim et al., 2000

It also isn’t as simple as saying everyone who experienced trauma has “too much cortisol.” Another study found different patterns in parts of the stress-response system depending on participants’ histories of abuse and depression. Heim et al., 2001

Inflammation is another piece

In a study that followed a birth cohort into adulthood, childhood maltreatment was associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers at age 32. The association remained after researchers accounted for several other childhood and adult factors. Danese et al., 2007

That finding matters (an inflammatory marker is not an autoimmune diagnosis), and it doesn’t tell us that a person will develop one. Researchers have also examined how chronic stress might affect immune cells’ sensitivity to cortisol’s inflammation-regulating signals. A 2012 study found evidence supporting that possibility in research involving exposure to cold viruses. It offers a potential mechanism worth investigating, not direct proof about childhood trauma and autoimmune disease. Cohen et al., 2012

A possible explanation is not the whole answer

These findings help explain why researchers take the connection seriously. They also show how much remains to be worked out. A change in a stress response, an elevated inflammatory marker, and the development of a specific autoimmune disease are different findings. Connecting them requires more than putting them next to each other.

None of this is a reason to tell someone their illness is “all in their head.” Studying how experiences interact with biology does not make physical illness imaginary. It also does not establish that processing trauma will reverse an autoimmune condition. The question is how childhood experiences might contribute to later health, not whether someone is to blame for becoming ill.

What If You’re Living With an Autoimmune Disease—or Still Looking for Answers?

Maybe you have a history of childhood trauma and an autoimmune diagnosis. Or maybe you’re still trying to understand your symptoms and find out whether an autoimmune condition could explain them.

Either way, it makes sense to have questions. You may be looking for an explanation, trying to understand why your body feels the way it does, or finally seeing researchers ask a question you’ve been carrying for years. The studies we’ve discussed cannot tell you why you, specifically, became ill. They also cannot tell you whether your symptoms are caused by an autoimmune disease. A trauma history is not a diagnostic test.

You do not need a confirmed diagnosis (or proof of a connection to trauma) for your symptoms to deserve attention. Your physical symptoms deserve to be taken seriously, and so does the impact of what happened to you. One should not become a reason to dismiss the other. That is what I want this research to contribute to: greater curiosity and more thoughtful care. A trauma history should help a provider understand the person in front of them, not become a convenient explanation for every symptom.

For someone still seeking answers, that distinction matters. Exploring possible effects of trauma should not replace an appropriate medical evaluation or narrow the search prematurely. The goal is to understand what is happening, whether the explanation turns out to be autoimmune or something else.

I also don’t want this conversation to become another assignment for survivors.

If I process enough, heal enough, or learn to manage stress better, will my body finally get better?

The research reviewed here does not establish that trauma treatment prevents or reverses autoimmune disease. Support for trauma-related distress can have value without being presented as a cure for a physical condition, and continuing to experience symptoms does not mean someone has failed to heal emotionally.

Through that history, your doctors get another piece of the puzzle that helps them better understand you. It can help them understand your experiences alongside your symptoms, medical history, examination, and test results. It doesn’t solve the puzzle or confirm an autoimmune diagnosis on its own, but it can add context to the questions they ask and the care you discuss together.

The possibility of a connection should broaden the conversation about care. It should never become another way to tell someone that being sick is their fault; that getting well is simply a matter of trying harder.

Where This Leaves Us

I started looking into this because I wanted to understand whether experiences in childhood could be connected to physical illness years later. What I found gave me reasons to keep asking (and reasons to be careful with the answers). There are studies showing associations between childhood adversity and certain autoimmune conditions, alongside inconsistent findings, differences in how researchers measure trauma, and important limitations. The research gives us something worth investigating. It does not give us a simple explanation for any one person’s illness.

I want to see that work continue. I want clearer answers about which experiences may matter, how they might interact with other factors, and whether understanding those connections can improve care. People living with symptoms still need to be heard while those questions are being studied.

If someone chooses to tell their doctor about a history of trauma, that information can become another piece of the puzzle. It should add to the conversation about their health, without replacing the examination, testing, and medical judgment needed to understand their symptoms. Whether someone has a diagnosis or is still looking for answers, they deserve care that takes both their experiences and their physical symptoms seriously.

We can acknowledge what the research suggests, be honest about what it cannot tell us, and still insist that people deserve to be heard.