Related Papers
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Hair cortisol, stress exposure, and mental health in humans: A systematic review
2013 •
Elisabeth Van Rossum
Life sciences
Hair cortisol: A new tool for evaluating stress in programs of stress management
2015 •
Dario Jacobsen
Longitudinal and experimental studies have shown that chronic stress contributes to the onset and progression of different diseases. Although it is not possible to eliminate stress completely, people can learn to manage it by participating in different kinds of stress management interventions. This study examined the effectiveness of stress management interventions on neuroendocrine responses in stressed students and health professionals, by measuring hair cortisol in comparison to salivary cortisol. Salivary and hair cortisol measurements were performed in 37 subjects (31women, 6 men; mean age 34.0±10.6) who attended to a Coping Stress and Quality of Care Program at the University of Buenos Aires. Cortisol was measured at the beginning and at the end of the program. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory STAI was used to evaluate state and trait anxiety. In subjects who completed the program, no differences were observed in salivary cortisol levels between the first and the last session...
BMC Clinical Pathology
Cortisol in hair measured in young adults - a biomarker of major life stressors?
2011 •
Tomas Faresjö
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Correspondence between hair cortisol concentrations and 30-day integrated daily salivary and weekly urinary cortisol measures
2016 •
Sonja Entringer
RESEARCH ARTICLE Relationship between Hair Cortisol and Perceived Chronic Stress in a Diverse Sample
2013 •
Kymberlee O'Brien
Hair cortisol (CORT) is a biomarker of chronic stress via long-term alterations in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Relationships to perceived stress measures, however, have rarely been specifically investigated. A diverse sample of 135 adults participated in a study assessing relationships between chronic stress indicator CORT to perceived stress and health indicators. CORT was not correlated to single perceived domain indices but with a global stress composite. Differences in objective and subjective measures were found for sociodemographics: racial/ethnic identity, sex and socioeconomic status (SES). Race by SES interactions predicted both CORT and perceived stress, but produced a complex and partially unanticipated pattern of results. For minorities, low and high SES showed the highest CORT, with mid-SES showing the lowest CORT; there was little change in perceived stress at all levels of SES. For non-minorities, mid-SES showed the highest CORT, with decreases in bo...
Stress
Associations of hair cortisol concentration with self-reported measures of stress and mental health-related factors in a pooled database of diverse community samples
2014 •
James Kennedy
A Cortisol Study; Facial Hair and Nails
Jalil Ghassemi Nejad, Jalil Ghassemi Nejad, Jennette Cabibi
Current methods for measuring cortisol levels can be challenging due to the need to take multiple urine, saliva or serum samples. Therefore, it seems necessary to find alternative matrices which can be used as stress indicators in which sample collection methods are non-invasive. Two experiments were conducted to first to test the feasibility of cortisol levels in facial hair and second to find a correlation among facial hair cortisol and cortisol levels in nails. In the first experiment, facial hair from five subjects was analyzed to confirm the presence of cortisol. The results of the assessment of facial hair showed that facial hair may be used to measure cortisol levels over a short period of time. In the second experiment, nineteen university students (males who regularly partake in martial arts-aged: 22 ± 3.15) provided fingernail, toenail and facial hair samples at set intervals throughout the school year; 1) The Study Period-during the student's everyday life (minimal stress conditions, baseline), 2) The Exam Period-following student's final exams (mental stress), and 3) The Fighting Period-following intensive martial arts training (physical stress). Cortisol in facial hair, toenails, and fingernails showed higher levels during both the Exam Period and the Fighting Period when compared to the baseline Study Period (p<0.05). However, no differences in cortisol levels were observed among the indices during the Exam Period and Fighting Period (p>0.05). A higher correlation in cortisol levels was observed between facial hair samples and toenails (r=0.73) than between fingernails and toenails (r=0.61). Overall, cortisol levels showed significant correlations between fingernails and toenails (p=0.001, r=0.61), fingernails and facial hair (p=0.01, r=0.54), and toenails and facial hair (p=0.001, r=0.73). Further research is needed to understand the relationship between facial hair and nail cortisol and their possible relationship with health disorders.
THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SALIVARY AND SERUM CORTISOL LEVELS IN THE HEALTHY POPULATION
Medico Research Chronicles
Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the correlation between salivary and serum cortisol levels in the healthy population. Methods: 30 healthy women and men, aged from 22 to 53 years old, were included in our study. All the participants were healthy, without any known disease. Two samples of salivary and serum cortisol were collected from all the participants in the study, in the morning and in the afternoon, before and after work. The mean age was 33 ± 14 SD years old. 60% (18) were females and 40% (12) were males. All the participants were within normal weight range, the mean BMI was 23.5 kg/m². All the subjects followed the rules of salivary sample collection. Results: The mean age of the healthy subjects was 33 ± 14 years old. The mean baseline morning cortisol level of the study population was 159.6 ng/ml (SD: 41.7; normal range 55-230 ng/ml, 8:00 AM) and the mean salivary cortisol level in the morning was 3.2 µg/dL (SD: 2.4 µg/dL; normal range 1-11.3 µg/dL). After work, at 4:00 PM, the mean baseline serum cortisol was 100.1 ng/ml (SD: 30.7; normal range 28-140 ng/ml) and the mean salivary cortisol level after work was 1.21 µg/dl (SD: 0.59; normal range 0.2-2.7 µg/dl). Baseline salivary cortisol correlated significantly with serum salivary cortisol before and after work; at 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM; p <0.05 in the morning and p< 0.0001 after work. The Pearson's coefficients were 0.44 in the morning and 0.7 in the afternoon. Conclusions: In our study we found a correlation between salivary and serum cortisol levels in both samples, in the morning and in the afternoon. The salivary cortisol levels correlated significantly with the serum cortisol levels (r = 0.44, p< 0.05 in the morning and r = 0.7, p <0.00.1 in the afternoon).
F1000Research
Validity and reliability of method used to analyse hair cortisol concentration
Jordan Reid
Hair cortisol analysis is a method of analysing the stress hormone cortisol that offers great potential for helping researchers understand the long-term impact of stress and distress on the body. Hair analysis not only provides an excellent method of studying the average production of cortisol over weeks and months, but also the potential to understand cortisol levels several months before the hair was collected. Whilst research with hair samples for cortisol analysis is a fast-developing field, there has been less analysis of the methods used to analyse hair cortisol. We report two studies where the novel hair analysis method developed at the Anglia Ruskin university (ARU) Biomarker Laboratory was tested for reliability and validity. In study 1, 32 participants provided hair samples for an examination of the reproducibility of the hair cortisol analysis method. In study 2, 53 participants provided a hair sample cut from the scalp, and the methanol that the cortisol was extracted in...
Relationship between Hair Cortisol and Perceived Chronic Stress in a Diverse Sample
Kymberlee O'Brien
Hair cortisol (CORT) is a biomarker of chronic stress via long-term alterations in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Relationships to perceived stress measures, however, have rarely been specifically investigated. A diverse sample of 135 adults participated in a study assessing relationships between chronic stress indicator CORT to perceived stress and health indicators. CORT was not correlated to single perceived domain indices but with a global stress composite. Differences in objective and subjective measures were found for sociodemographics: racial/ethnic identity, sex and socioeconomic status (SES). Race by SES interactions predicted both CORT and perceived stress, but produced a complex and partially unanticipated pattern of results. For minorities, low and high SES showed the highest CORT, with mid-SES showing the lowest CORT; there was little change in perceived stress at all levels of SES. For non-minorities, mid-SES showed the highest CORT, with decreases in both CORT and perceived stress in high SES. The unanticipated findings of deleterious outcomes for high SES minorities highlight the importance of investigating potential stressors and moderators, including perceived discrimination and social identity. Moreover, these results suggest that CORT may not always correlate with single stress indices but may provide a global assessment of chronic stress, with implications for the allostatic load literature.
