Study links PTSD in 9/11 responders to faster biological aging

World Trade Center responders with post-traumatic stress disorder showed blood-based signs tied to faster biological aging and chronic disease risk in a new study. The findings may help explain why PTSD, often treated as a mental health condition, is also linked to long-term physical illness.

The research, published in Nature Communications, was led by investigators connected to Stony Brook University’s World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program and scientists at Duke University. Stony Brook said the program monitors and treats about 10,000 people who responded after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The team studied blood samples collected from World Trade Center responder patients nearly 18 years after 9/11. The analysis included 393 trauma-exposed responders: 232 with diagnosed PTSD and 161 controls without the diagnosis, according to the researchers.

Using plasma proteomics and targeted metabolomics, the investigators found 114 proteins and seven metabolites that differed in responders with PTSD. Stony Brook said those differences pointed to changes in pathways involving nerve structure, immune activation, metabolism, redox balance and extracellular processes.

Researchers said the molecular patterns suggest PTSD is associated with broad biological changes beyond the brain. They linked those changes to forms of metabolite dysregulation often seen in chronic disease.

Signals across multiple organs

The study also found evidence of accelerated proteomic aging across several organ-linked plasma signatures, including markers associated with the pancreas and lungs. The authors said faster pancreatic aging could point to earlier declines in pancreatic function after long-term trauma exposure.

Benjamin J. Luft, senior author of the study and director of the Stony Brook World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program, said the results show trauma can affect more than psychological health over many years. Luft is also the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

Luft said the biological changes identified in the study may partly explain why PTSD is associated with higher rates of cognitive problems, heart disease, lung conditions and other chronic illnesses. He said the findings support treating responders’ mental and physical health together as they continue to age.

Pei-Fen Kuan, the study’s first author and a professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Stony Brook, said combining proteomic and metabolomic data helped reveal molecular networks that could be missed if each data type were studied alone.

Proteomics measures proteins that drive many bodily processes, while metabolomics measures small molecules that reflect activity by genes and proteins. The researchers said using both methods gave them a more detailed picture of biochemical differences among the study participants.

The team said the approach also allowed estimates of organ-specific proteomic aging for organs including the heart, kidney, liver and lung. In aging and chronic disease research, the authors said such organ-level measures have been associated with risks for conditions including cardiovascular and renal disease.

The paper, titled “Integrated proteomic and metabolomic analyses implicate redox-metabolic pathways in PTSD-associated multisystem disease and accelerated aging,” lists Kuan and colleagues as authors. Stony Brook described the work as the result of more than a decade of research.

This story draws on original reporting from Medical Xpress.