Conversion therapy might harm a young person’s long-term heart health, new study says

Young adults assigned male at birth were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure if they’d been exposed to conversion therapy, a discredited practice that attempts to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, researchers report in JAMA Network Open.

These young adults also had higher levels of inflammation and elevated blood pressure levels, both of which are potentially damaging to heart health, researchers report.

“This is the first study, to our knowledge, to document elevated blood pressure and systemic inflammation, important factors shaping the risk of adverse cardiovascular health outcomes, among sexual and gender minority people exposed to [conversion therapy],” concluded the research team led by senior author Brian Mustanski, director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University in Chicago.

For the study, researchers analyzed health data on more than 700 young adults assigned male gender at birth, of whom 23% were transgender or gender diverse.

About 10% of participants said they’d been put through conversion therapy, which tries to alter same-sex attractions or change sexual minority identity.

“These interventions, rooted in discredited beliefs that sexual and gender minority identities, behaviors, and/or attractions are immoral, abnormal, and/or pathological, have been unequivocally denounced by leading medical, psychological, and human rights organizations based on their harmful psychological impacts,” researchers said in background notes.

“The detrimental psychological effects of (conversion therapy) include heightened risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality,” the researchers added.

Researchers tested heart health measures including blood pressure and blood markers for inflammation, and asked participants if they’d been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Results showed that people sent through conversion therapy were nearly 2.9 times as likely to have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, even though their average age was around 27.

They were also more likely to have elevated blood pressure at the time of the researchers’ health check, and their blood showed more markers of inflammation.

The findings “support bans on (conversion therapy) and enforcement of existing bans to eventually eliminate the adverse health consequences associated with these practices,” researchers concluded.

“Although awareness of the harm caused by (conversion therapy) is increasing, legal bans remain inconsistent across the US,” researchers said. “Policymakers should consider these results when shaping laws to protect sexual and gender minority individuals from further harm.”

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