Review articleThe association between post-traumatic stress disorder and shorter telomere length: A systematic review and meta-analysis

•The meta-analysis intends to describe the association between Post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) and telomeres length.•Individuals with PTSD have shorter telomeres length.•Early intervention and timely treatment may prevent future adverse health outcomes.

ObjectivePost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common psychiatric disorder, which may accelerate aging. Many study have investigated the association between telomeres length and PTSD, but results from published studies are contradictory. Therefore, Meta-analysis approaches were conducted to give more precise estimate of relationship between telomere length and PTSD.MethodWe systematically reviewed the databases of PUBMED, PsycINFO, Medline(Ovid SP) and EMBASE for all articles on the association between telomere length and PTSD. Data were summarized by using random-effects in the meta-analysis. The heterogeneity among studies were examined by using Cochrane's Q statistic and I-squared.ResultsFive eligible studies containing 3851 participants were included in our meta-analysis. Shorten telomere length was significantly associated with PTSD with mean difference of −0.19( 95% CI: −0.27, −0.01; P<0.001) with I-square of 96%. The results from subgroup analysis demonstrated that shorter telomere length was significantly associated with PTSD across all gender groups, with mean difference of −0.15( 95% CI: −0.29, −0.01; P=0.04) for female, mean difference of −0.17( 95% CI: −0.19, −0.15; P<0.001) for male. Meanwhile, shorten telomere length was significantly associated with sexual assault(mean difference =−0.15, 95% CI: −0.29, −0.01), childhood trauma (mean difference =−0.08, 95% CI: −0.19, −0.07), but not combat (mean difference =−0.39, 95% CI: −0.83, 0.05).ConclusionCompared to the individuals without PTSD, individuals with PTSD have shorter telomere length, which has implications for early intervention and timely treatment to prevent future adverse health outcomes.