The Toll of War Captivity: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Premature Aging

The longitudinal associations between attitudes to aging and attachment insecurities among combat veterans.

“…Our results indicated that a number of variables predicted ATOA at T2, including combat-related PTSD symptoms. These findings are in line with previous studies on exposure to war and PTSD symptoms and their association with health, well-being, and social functioning (Solomon & Ohry, 2010; Vaillant & Highum Vaillant, 2018). However, contrary to our hypothesis there were nonsignificant associations between combat exposure and ATOA at T2.…”

“…Age-related factors, including changes in cognitive function, loss of loved ones, losses of roles, and changes in health might compound to increase the adverse effects of past traumatic experiences (Palgi et al, 2015). Indeed, multiple studies have demonstrated that previous exposure to the trauma of combat can take a toll on aging veterans in terms of their health, well-being, social functioning, and even mortality (Solomon & Ohry, 2010; Vaillant & Highum Vaillant, 2018). Although a less obvious outcome, trauma can affect veterans’ personal experiences of aging, which can in turn influence the course of aging itself (i.e., Avidor et al, 2018).…”

N-glycosylation profiling of plasma provides evidence for accelerated physiological aging in post-traumatic stress disorder

“…6, 7, 8 One underlying biological mechanism might be that chronic stress is associated with an accelerating process of cellular aging. 9 Individuals with PTSD not only show typical age-related diseases 10, 11 and report an older subjective age than controls, 12, 13 but they even show characteristics indicative of accelerated aging. For instance, naive T lymphocytes decrease with age and are the lowest in centenarians, 14 and individuals with PTSD also show a reduction in naïve T lymphocytes.…”

Lower subjective life expectancy in later life is a risk factor for posttraumatic stress symptoms among trauma survivors.

“…For people with recent or past exposure to trauma, this might come at a cost of being more prone to distress and psychopathology, as it could result in fewer emotional resources available to organize overwhelming feelings stemming both from trauma and from the changes that are common in older adulthood. This difficulty to tolerate distressing psychological states could involve a higher risk for disrupted homeostasis, which is associated with PTSS (Z. Solomon & Ohry, 2010).…”