Fig. 1: Biological aging scores—measured by DunedinPACE and scaled to years of biological aging for each year of chronological aging—based on current PTSD status, PTSD symptoms, and lifetime trauma burden.
From: Posttraumatic stress disorder, trauma, and accelerated biological aging among post-9/11 veterans
PTSD status included participants with (n = 1,168) and without current PTSD (n = 1,141). Veterans with PTSD were aging faster, β = 0.18, 95% CI [0.11, 0.27], p < .001. Categories for PTSD symptoms and lifetime trauma burden were created using quartile splits across the full sample (n = 2,309) and are for illustrative purposes only—analyses using PTSD symptoms and trauma burden were measured continuously. Veterans with more PTSD symptoms and more trauma were aging faster, β = 0.13, 95% CI [0.09, 0.16], p < .001, and β = 0.09, 95% CI [0.05, 0.13], p < 0.001, respectively. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
