Salivary cortisol in a middle-aged community sample: results from 990 men and women of the KORA-F3 Augsburg study

Abstract

Objective: Analysis of salivary cortisol concentrations and derived indices is increasingly used in clinical and scientific medicine. However, comprehensive data on these parameters in the general population are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the concentrations of salivary cortisol in a large middle-aged community sample and to identify major factors associated with altered hormone levels. Design: We conducted a cross-sectional study within the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA)-F3 study. A total of 1484 participants aged 50-69 years (52% women) had agreed to provide four saliva samples during a regular weekday. Methods: We measured salivary cortisol concentrations at wake-up (F0), 1

Assessment of glucocorticoid therapy with salivary cortisol in secondary adrenal insufficiency

“…We considered the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of AUC 0-14 , AUC 0-7 , and AUC [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] in the healthy controls as the lower and upper limits of normality. Each patient's salivary cortisol levels are shown in Fig.…”

“…Stratifying the patients by BMI (above or below 25 kg/m 2 ) or sex, we found no differences between the groups in terms of single salivary cortisol concentrations, AUC 0-14 , AUC 0-7 , or AUC [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . There were no correlations between BMI, WHR, or BSA with the CA dose.…”

“…To take into account multiple comparisons, the raw P values in group comparisons for the salivary samples at fixed times and AUC obtained with Wilcoxon test were adjusted with Bonferroni's method. Linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between salivary cortisol F 1.5 and AUC 0-7 , and between F 8.5 and AUC [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . The database was managed and statistical analysis performed by SAS 9.1 for Windows (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA) or Excel 2010 for Windows.…”

“…To assess endogenous daily cortisol secretion in healthy controls and glucocorticoid exposure in patients, we computed the area under the curve (AUC) for salivary cortisol levels at the different time points with respect to the ground (AUC 0-14 ), according to the trapezoidal formula proposed by Pruessner et al (30). We divided the day being examined into two different periods of 7 h, called AUC 0-7 (from F 0 to F 7) and AUC [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] (from F 7 to F 14).…”

“…Salivary steroids are a non-invasive, easily repeated, stress-free way to measure circulating free hormone levels (12,13), recently recommended for assessing cortisol profiles in healthy people (14,15) and in patients with hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis disorders (16,17).…”