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A study found if your parents separated when you were a child, you have an increased risk of poorer health as an adult. However, experts haven’t understood why - until now. New research

published in  the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discovered that adults whose parents didn’t speak to each other after divorcing during their childhoods were more likely to

develop a cold when exposed to a common cold virus. In fact, they were three times more susceptible. This was compared to adults whose parents had stayed together, or who had separated but

continued to communicate. A ‘silent treatment’ divorce can be particularly stressful for children and, as the study shows, have a detrimental effect on their body’s ability to fight illness

later in life. Michael Murphy, a psychology postdoctoral research associate in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, said: “Early life

stressful experiences do something to our physiology and inflammatory processes that increase risk for poorer health and chronic illness,”  “This work is a step forward in our understanding

of how family stress during childhood may influence a child’s susceptibility to disease 20-40 years later.” In the study, researchers exposed 201 healthy adults to a virus that caused the

common cold. After monitoring them for five days for signs of a respiratory illness, they found adults whose parents lived apart and never spoke during their childhood were more likely to

catch it. It’s thought to be because of raised inflammation in response to a viral infection. Sheldon Cohen, professor of psychology, said: “Our results target the immune system as an

important carrier of the long-term negative impact of early family conflict. GWEN STEFANI OPENS UP ABOUT HER DIVORCE AND NEW RELATIONSHIP GETTY Silent treatment: It's more stressful on

child's immune system “They also suggest that all divorces are not equal, with continued communication between parents buffering deleterious effects of separation on the health

trajectories of the children.” A previous 2014 study published in the Journal of Immunology found that childhood stress had a significant impact on the immune system. They discovered that

some five year olds from families with a lot of stress, had elevated cortisol - a stress hormone known to lower immune function. This opens up the possibility that stress children feel due

to particular divorce situations may put them at greater risk of illness later in life.