Diurnal cortisol is a marker of HPA-axis activity that may be one of the biological mechanisms linking stressors to age-related health declines. The current study identified day-centered profiles of diurnal cortisol among 1101 adults living in the United States. Participants took part in up to four consecutive days of salivary cortisol collection, assessed at waking, 30min post-waking, before l...

In the late-gestation sheep, increased fetal plasma cortisol concentration and placental oestradiol (E(2)) output contribute to fetal organ maturation, in addition to the onset of parturition. Both cortisol and E(2) are believed to regulate the enzyme 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD1), which interconverts bioactive 11-hydroxy glucocorticoids and their inactive 11-keto met...

In severely ill patients low concentrations of the corticosteroid binding globulin are typically found; the aim of this study was to quantify directly free bioactive cortisol concentrations in the sera of postoperative cardiosurgical patients. Serum samples of 12 consecutive patients undergoing aortocoronary bypass surgery taken preoperatively and on the postoperative days 1 to 4 were analyzed....

OBJECTIVE Salivary cortisol in the assessment of glucocorticoid related disorders. DESIGN-METHODS: Serum and salivary cortisol were measured in 189 patients (22 Cushing's syndrome, 67 pseudo-Cushing, 11 Addison's disease, 89 controls) at 8:00 and 24:00 h. RESULTS Serum and salivary cortisol correlated in the whole study population (r=0.62, p=0.000). Morning serum and saliva cortisol in Addiso...

Individuals differ widely in cortisol output over the day and cortisol reactivity to challenge, both of which are relevant to disease risk. There is limited evidence concerning the heritability of these differences, so we evaluated the heritability of cortisol levels in the afternoon and cortisol reactivity using a twin design. The study involved 80 monozygotic (MZ) and 70 dizygotic (DZ) same-s...

conclusions religiosity has been used as a coping mechanism among blacks. religiosity may also be related to stress regulation among black youth. future studies need to test complex associations between race, sex, religiosity, chronic stress, coping, and function of hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (hpa). it is not known whether male black youth who are and those who are not religious differently ...

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that cortisol interferes with the positive feedback action of estradiol that induces the luteinizing hormone (LH) surge. Ovariectomized sheep were treated sequentially with progesterone and estradiol to create artificial estrous cycles. Cortisol or vehicle (saline) was infused from 2 h before the estradiol stimulus through the time of the an...

To understand the underlying genetic and environmental sources of individual variation in basal cortisol levels, we collected salivary cortisol at awakening and at six fixed time points during the day in adult twins and their singleton siblings. Reported time of awakening was verified with heart rate and body movement recordings. Cortisol data were available for 199 MZ twins, 272 DZ twins and 2...

OBJECTIVES Diurnal cortisol secretion levels were measured and circadian cortisol profiles were evaluated in a pilot study conducted to test the hypothesis that grounding the human body to earth during sleep will result in quantifiable changes in cortisol. It was also hypothesized that grounding the human body would result in changes in sleep, pain, and stress (anxiety, depression, irritability...