Study links PTSD to accelerated biological aging and chronic disease

Medical researchers have documented that PTSD is associated with an increased risk of chronic disease and accelerated biological aging, yet the underlying mechanisms in patients remain unclear. For this study, the team collected blood samples of WTC responder patients nearly 18 years after 9/11. They performed plasma proteomics and collaborated with Dr. Christopher Newgard and his team at the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute to perform targeted metabolomics in 393 WTC responders – 232 of these individuals had diagnosed PTSD, and 161 were trauma-exposed controls. A total of 114 proteins and seven metabolites were expressed differently in the PTSD patients.

Such changes together, they write, "indicate that PTSD is accompanied by coordinated, multisystem, molecular dysregulation that extends beyond the central nervous system and provides insight into the long-term biological embedding of traumatic stress."

"These changes to certain fundamental biological processes are an indicator and can explain at least in part why PTSD is associated with greater incidence of cognitive problems, heart disease, lung ailments, and other chronic diseases that will cause patients to age more quickly," Dr. Luft explains. "This is why it is so important, especially going forward many years after the attack of 9/11 to approach the medical monitoring and care of these patients from both their mental and physical health together."

A systems-level view of PTSD 

The significance of completing plasma proteomics and metabolic profiling is that proteomics allows for the direct measurement of proteins that control nearly all physiological processes. Metabolic profiling examines small molecules that reflect gene and protein activity. Analyses of both proteomic and metabolic profiling therefore provides a complementary view of the biochemical states of each of the study subjects.

"By integrating proteomic and metabolomic data, we were able to uncover coordinated molecular networks that might be missed if each type of data is analyzed separately," explains Dr. Kuan.

Several federal funding agencies supported this research that led to these findings, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The SUNY Research Foundation also provided support.

Source:

Stony Brook University

Journal reference:

Kuan, P.-F., et al. (2026). Integrated proteomic and metabolomic analyses implicate redox-metabolic pathways in PTSD-associated multisystem disease and accelerated aging. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-74757-8. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74757-8