Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Autoimmune Diseases

In this issue of Biological Psychiatry, O'Donovan et al. (1) present the most comprehensive study on autoimmune diseases in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to date. The authors use a cohort of 666,269 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans <55 years old enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system in the United States. In 30.6% of the veterans, PTSD was diagnosed, and psychiatric disorders other than PTSD were diagnosed in an additional 19.5% of the veterans. In 1.5% (n = 9743) of the veterans, an autoimmune disease was diagnosed on two or more separate encounters within the Veterans Affairs health care system, with the most common autoimmune disease being thyroiditis, which was diagnosed in 1.0% of the veterans.