Abstract

Copyright © 2015 by the American Psychosomatic Society.Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with indicators of poor physical health and sleep disturbance. This study investigated the relationship between PTSD and metabolic risk factors and examined the role of sleep duration in medically healthy and medication-free adults. Methods: Participants with PTSD and control participants free of lifetime psychiatric history recorded sleep using sleep diary for 10 nights and actigraphy for 7 nights. We assessed metabolic risk factors including fasting triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol, as well as abdominal fat using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Results: PTSD was associated with shorter sleep duration and higher metabolic risks, including increased triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, very low density lipoprotein cholesterol, and cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein ratio. In addition, sleep duration was associated with metabolic risks in PTSD but did not fully account for the association between PTSD and metabolic measures. Conclusions: Metabolic risk factors are associated with PTSD even in early adulthood, which highlights the need for early intervention. Future longitudinal research should assess whether sleep disturbance in PTSD is a mechanism that contributes to heightened metabolic risk to elucidate the pathway from PTSD to higher rates of medical disorders such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.