[di meliora]

Research has shown that women are at greater risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than men. Now, scientists based at the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC) have found that women with the condition might be more likely to experience faster aging at the cellular level and increased risk for diseases of aging than men with PTSD. http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/08/125...-risk-due-ptsd

Aoife S. O'Donovan, PhD, tells us:

For now these findings are “preliminary and provocative, but not conclusive,” O’Donovan said. “However, they have led us to question if there are specific mechanisms by which men but not women might be more protected from inflammation in PTSD.”

She concluded:

O’Donovan and UCSF colleagues reported other studies at the conference, as well. In one, they found a link between inflammation and higher lifetime exposure to trauma among heart disease patients. In others, they found that trauma exposure, PTSD and heightened perception of threat, or hypervigilance, were associated with shorter telomeres. Both short telomere length and chronic inflammation have been associated with increased risk for chronic diseases of aging.

“Our latest findings suggest that PTSD increases risk for disorders that have an inflammatory basis, and that this risk is greatest of all in women with PTSD,” O’Donovan said.

O’Donovan is particularly interested in further exploring the roles that male and female hormones play in regulating biological responses to traumatic stress and the ways that different kinds of traumatic experiences might influence responses.

Women might do well to ask their treatment team if they are taking into account gender differences when treating women.