PTSD and Accelerated Aging

For hundreds of years, scientists have recognized that the human body is highly sensitive to the external environment. In the mid-1800s, Claude Bernard, who is credited with being among the first to develop and apply scientific methods of experimentation to the study of physiology, suggested that the external environment could alter the “milieu intérieur” (interior environment; Bernard, 1974), the predecessor to the concept of physiological homeostasis. Since that time, a broad research basis has been established focused on understanding how stress, life adversity, and other aspects of the external environment get “under the skin” and lead to poor physical health (e.g., McEwen, 2012). More recently, investigators have suggested that aspects of the intra-individual environment, such as psychiatric symptoms, may impact physiology directly and be as important as the external environment, if not more so, in predicting subsequent health outcomes (e.g., Schnurr & Green, 2004).