Long-term glucocorticoid concentrations as a risk factor for childhood obesity and adverse body-fat distribution

Abstract

Long-term cortisol concentrations are strongly associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity and adverse body-fat distribution. Future research may reveal whether these are causal relations and may be a target for therapy.

Does stress influence sleep patterns, food intake, weight gain, abdominal obesity and weight loss interventions and vice versa?

“…cortisol in hair and saliva, heart rate variability, resting heart rate and blood pressure. Evidence from observational studies using hair and saliva cortisol samples and/or blood pressure measures reveal that stress is positively related to increased BMI and specifically abdominal adiposity, both among children and adults (Table ) . These results have also been repeated in human experimental studies, where negative mood and cortisol levels increased significantly as response to acute stress sessions; high cortisol compared with low cortisol responders were significantly more negatively affected/stressed (Table ) .…”

Obesity, perceived weight discrimination, and hair cortisol: a population-based study

“…This method for assessing cortisol has advantages over traditional measures using saliva, urine or serum, because it is not vulnerable to daily fluctuations and reflects average exposure to cortisol over approximately one month per 1 cm of scalp-proximal hair . Previous studies in the ELSA cohort and other samples have documented a positive association between obesity and hair cortisol (Jackson et al, 2017;Manenschijn et al, 2011b;Noppe et al, 2016;Veldhorst et al, 2013;Wester et al, 2014), but this literature needs further development and the mechanisms underlying this association are not well understood. Relationships between perceived weight discrimination and both obesity (Jackson et al, 2015b) and hair cortisol (Jackson et al, 2016) have also been observed in ELSA, but the potential mediating role of weight discrimination has not been tested in this or any other sample.…”

Longitudinal Associations of Sleep Duration, Morning and Evening Cortisol, and BMI During Childhood

“…This association may be causal, based on evidence from a controlled trial in adults showing that shorter sleep duration was followed by an elevation in cortisol levels the next evening ( 13 ). However, a few studies in children have indicated the reverse: cortisol dysregulation may precede sleep problems ( 14 , 15 , 16 ). These studies suggest that HPA dysregulation and sleep duration are associated, but the direction of effects are not clear and warrant further investigation.…”