ArticleMolecular psychiatry2021
A DNA methylation clock associated with age-related illnesses and mortality is accelerated in men with combat PTSD.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 50 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder moderates the association between BrainAge acceleration and GrimAge acceleration.Neurobiology of aging · 2026Pooled it
- PTSD and epigenetic aging: a longitudinal meta-analysis.Psychological medicine · 2025Pooled it
- The Impact of Psychosocial Stress from Life Trauma and Racial Discrimination on Epigenetic Aging-A Systematic Review.Biological research for nursing · 2022Pooled it
- DNA methylation GrimAge acceleration in US military veterans with PTSD.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Dynamic responses in the human methylome to exertional heat exhaustion, heat injury, and heat stroke.Human genomics · 2026Article
- Mental health across the lifecourse as predictors of epigenetic aging from a longitudinal birth cohort in the United States.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Psychosocial stressors, accelerated biological aging, and multiple morbidities: Evidence from an age-diverse sample.PloS one · 2026Article
- Lifetime trauma exposure and accelerated epigenetic aging among midlife women.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2025Article
- Work-related stress and burnout: Is epigenetic aging the missing link?Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Quantification of Epigenetic Aging in Public Health.Annual review of public health · 2025Review
- Sleep traits causally affect epigenetic age acceleration: a Mendelian randomization study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Post-traumatic stress disorder: evolving conceptualization and evidence, and future research directions.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2025Article
- No association of posttraumatic stress disorder with epigenetic aging in women at mid-life: A longitudinal cohort study.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Methylation and algorithms in biological aging: a scoping review.Frontiers in aging · 2025Review
- Epigenetic Age Acceleration and Disparities in Posttraumatic Stress in Women in Southeast Louisiana: NIMHD Social Epigenomics Program.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Systems biology dissection of PTSD and MDD across brain regions, cell types, and blood.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Cellular reprogramming as a tool to model human aging in a dish.Nature communications · 2024Review
- Posttraumatic stress disorder, trauma, and accelerated biological aging among post-9/11 veterans.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Inflammation in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Dysregulation or Recalibration?Current neuropharmacology · 2024Article
- Longitudinal study of traumatic-stress related cellular and cognitive aging.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
17 authors at 8 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
DNA methylation patterns at specific cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites predictably change with age and can be used to derive "epigenetic age", an indicator of biological age, as opposed to merely chronological age. A relatively new estimator, called "DNAm GrimAge", is notable for its superior predictive ability in older populations regarding numerous age-related metrics like time-to-death, time-to-coronary heart disease, and time-to-cancer. PTSD is associated with premature mortality and frequently has comorbid physical illnesses suggestive of accelerated biological aging. This is the first study to assess DNAm GrimAge in PTSD patients. We investigated the acceleration of GrimAge relative to chronological age, denoted "AgeAccelGrim" in combat trauma-exposed male veterans with and without PTSD using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from two independent well-characterized veteran cohorts. In both cohorts, AgeAccelGrim was significantly higher in the PTSD group compared to the control group (N = 162, 1.26 vs -0.57, p = 0.001 and N = 53, 0.93 vs -1.60 Years, p = 0.008), suggesting accelerated biological aging in both cohorts with PTSD. In 3-year follow-up study of individuals initially diagnosed with PTSD (N = 26), changes in PTSD symptom severity were correlated with AgeAccelGrim changes (r = 0.39, p = 0.049). In addition, the loss of CD28 cell surface markers on CD8 + T cells, an indicator of T-cell senescence/exhaustion that is associated with biological aging, was positively correlated with AgeAccelGrim, suggesting an immunological contribution to the accelerated biological aging. Overall, our findings delineate cellular correlates of biological aging in combat-related PTSD, which may help explain the increased medical morbidity and mortality seen in this disease.
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