Stony Brook study explores link between PTSD and aging in Ground Zero workers

To Gary Smiley, a new study that found a possible ink between his post traumatic stress disorder stemming from his work as an FDNY paramedic at Ground Zero and his type 2 diabetes is both “fascinating” and “scary.”

Researchers affiliated with the Stony Brook World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program found new evidence the measurable, physical impacts of PTSD on the human body, including advanced pancreatic, respiratory and metabolic aging. Testing of Ground Zero first responders diagnosed with PTSD revealed higher levels of certain proteins and metabolites, or molecules that dictate biologic processes.

Some of the proteins measured at higher levels are those associated with “accelerated pancreatic aging” which “suggests that long-term trauma exposure may be linked to earlier declines in pancreatic function,” researchers said of the study's results, published last Saturday in “Nature Communications.” Those findings, researchers add, could “contribute to the observed increase in the risk of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes in subjects with PTSD.”

They could help explain the previously documented association between PTSD and chronic illnesses. They also add to the Stony Brook program’s efforts to reveal the biological indicators of PTSD, which will continue, Dr. Benjamin Luft, director of Stony Brook’s 9/11 program, told Newsday. Luft and advocates for first responders hope that more evidence of the physical toll of PTSD will help quell lingering stigmas and open avenues for those suffering to receive better treatment and financial compensation.

“I’m glad they’re doing research still, it’s important,” Smiley, 63, of Hazlet, New Jersey, told Newsday. “But when they come out with the results it’s scary because they find things that we really don’t want to hear, but what choice do we have?”

With the help of artificial intelligence and other programs, researchers from Stony Brook and the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute in North Carolina measured the levels of more than 10,000 proteins and metabolites and analyzed “how they interact and relate to one another” within the plasma of 393 Sept. 11 first responders, including 232 who were diagnosed with PTSD, Luft said.

“When different organs age, they have different protein signatures, so by looking at the different proteins that you can see what's happening,” Luft said. “With our patients, we found out that with the lung and the pancreas, we were able to show that they were aging significantly greater.”

Among the other proteins that were elevated were those related to inflammation and neural dysfunction.

“It's not just purely a psychological process, but that it's a neuropathologic process; you can see evidence of degeneration that occurs in patients with PTSD,” Luft said. “[PTSD] involves not only the brain or the psychologic apparatus, but it manifests itself in such a way that it impacts physical diseases and processes."

Advocates for the 9/11 first-responders hope Stony Brook’s research will persuade lawmakers to amend the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which does not allow Ground Zero responders to get compensation for PTSD through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Michael Barasch, whose law firm Barasch & McGarry represents 9/11 responders and survivors, told Newsday he is "delighted" that another Stony Brook study indicates PTSD “isn’t just emotional, but it’s also biological. It left measurable marks inside responders’ bodies.”

“That would be the right thing, for Congress to amend the strict rules that said no compensation for anything but physical illnesses,” Barasch, whose office is a couple blocks from Ground Zero, said. “That would correct such an injustice to these people who have been vilified by so many people saying ‘you’re weak, come on, snap out of it, it’s been 25 years.’ Now we can understand why not just mentally, but physically, why these people can’t ‘just snap out of it.’”

Around 23% of World Trade Center responders have been diagnosed with PTSD according to the Stony Brook 9/11 program, for which they “should be compensated,” Smiley said.

“Some responders walked out of there with PTSD and nothing else, but that alone is devastating,” Smiley, who serves as the WTC liaison for union Local 2507 which represents EMTs, paramedics and fire inspectors of the FDNY, said. “I know many that couldn’t return to work because of what they witnessed that day and the days and months afterwards. … That’s an injury.”