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In three studies, male veterans with military post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had elevated rates of autoimmune disorders, but the studies were small and had various design flaws. Now, researchers have used Swedish registries to prospectively examine risk for a first autoimmune disorder in 106,464 persons with stress disorders (PTSD, acute stress reaction, or adjustment disorder), 126,652 full siblings, and 1,064,640 age- and sex-matched controls without stress-related disorders.
Autoimmune disorders had to be diagnosed >1 year after stress-disorder diagnosis (as a control for reverse causation); 41 autoimmune diseases were tracked. During a mean follow-up of 10 years, incident rates of autoimmune disease were 6 per 1000 patient-years a…