frightening one: a single number that a doctor could give you in, say, your early twenties that would reflect both the stress you had experienced in life to that point and the medical risks that you now faced as a result of that stress. In some ways it would be a more refined version of your ACE score. But unlike your ACE score, which relies on your own report of your childhood, your allostatic-load number would reflect nothing but cold, hard medical data: the actual physical effects of childhood adversity, written on your body, deep under your skin.
