Correlation between plasma and saliva adrenocortical hormones in response to submaximal exercise

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between plasma and saliva adrenocortical hormones in response to long-duration submaximal exercise. In nine healthy, physically active, female volunteers, blood and saliva samples were taken at rest and every 30 min during a 120-min cycling trial at 50-55% VO(2max) for cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) analysis. Correlation analysis revealed a moderate but significant relationship between plasma and saliva cortisol (r = 0.35, P < 0.02) and plasma and saliva DHEA (r = 0.47, P < 0.001) during the submaximal exercise. When expressed in percent of resting values, the correlations between the plasma and saliva concentrations were higher for both hormones during the exercise (cortisol: r = 0.72; DHEA: r = 0.68, P< 0.001). The results thus suggest that, even under prolonged exercise conditions, non-invasive saliva samples may offer a practical approach to assessing pituitary-adrenal function, especially when compared with individual basal values.

Salivary but not plasma cortisone tracks the plasma cortisol response to exercise: effect of time of day

“…Broad range correlations (r = 0.35 to r = 92) between salivary and plasma/serum cortisol during and following exercise have been reported [5,7,11,17,22]. Our correlations between plasma and salivary cortisol induced by exercise were significant in the PM (r = 0.81) and the AM (r = 0.61), but the difference did not reached significance (p = 0.10).…”

Short-term Dehydroepiandrosterone Intake and Supramaximal Exercise in Young Recreationally-trained Women

“…Lipid-soluble steroids travel by passive diffusion, passing through the capillary wall, basement membrane, and acinar cells of the secretory endpieces along a concentration gradient [33]. Thus, saliva concentrations of unconjugated steroids reflect the unbound plasma concentration [6,12,39,42], on condition that the appropriate methods are used [20,27]. Steroids are usually very slightly metabolized in saliva.…”

“…In parallel, the effects on body composition and metabolic responses were estimated. Noninvasive saliva samples were taken for rest and end-exercise DHEA, testosterone and cortisol measurements, despite some reservations regarding saliva testosterone [16,20,26,27], as this was a field study and the blood/saliva correlation for steroid hormone concentrations has been found to be high [6,12,39,42]. We hypothesized that DHEA administration would result in improved performance in these young female athletes and significant changes in their body composition and saliva steroid hormone concentrations.…”

Effects of the Menstrual Cycle and Acute Aerobic Exercise on Cytokine Levels

“…Generally, these hormones have been used as stress markers [11,25,33]. Bernstein et al [34] investigated an association between sympathetic responsiveness and the serum concentration of IL-6 in young women.…”

“…Recently, saliva sampling has received attention as an alternative to blood sampling to measure stress markers [8][9][10][11]. Saliva collection has the advantage over blood sampling in that it is a non-invasive method of sample collection which does not require any specialized training.…”