Short intense psychological stress induced by skydiving does not impair intestinal barrier function

Abstract

Background and aim Psychological stress has been shown to increase intestinal permeability and is associated with the development of gastrointestinal disorders. This study aimed to investigate skydiving as an alternative model to analyse the effect of acute psychological stress on intestinal barrier function. Materials and methods Twenty healthy subjects participated in a tandem skydive followed by a negative control visit, of which 19 (9 females and 10 males, 25.9 ± 3.7 years) were included in the study. Intestinal permeability was assessed by a multi-sugar urinary recovery test. Sucrose recovery and lactulose/rhamnose ratio in 0-5h urine indicated gastroduodenal and small intestinal permeability, respectively, and sucralose/erythritol ratio in 5-24h urine indicated colonic permeability. Blood samples were taken to assess markers associated with barrier function. This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03644979) on August 23, 2018. Results Skydiving resulted in a significant increase in salivary cortisol levels directly after skydiving compared to the control visit. Cortisol levels were still increased two hours after landing, while cortisol levels before skydiving were not significantly different from the baseline at the control visit. Skydiving did not induce a significant increase in gastroduodenal, small intestinal or colonic permeability. There was also no significant increase in plasma intestinal and liver fatty acid-binding proteins, suggesting no damage to the enterocytes. Discussion These results show that the acute intense psychological stress induced by skydiving does not affect intestinal permeability in healthy subjects. Future models aiming to investigate the effect of stress on human intestinal barrier function should consider a more sustained exposure to the psychological stressor.

Sauna dehydration as a new physiological challenge model for intestinal barrier function

“…In our study, we used a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) treatment as a positive control, and indeed, intake of indomethacin increased small intestinal permeability assessed by the multi-sugar test as previously shown 17 , 30 – 32 . Apart from NSAIDs, also psychological stress 30 , 34 and strenuous endurance exercise 5 , 6 , 35 , 36 have shown to affect barrier function. The induction of psychological stress in a research setting can be challenging and difficult to standardize, while exercise-induced intestinal permeability can usually only be achieved by well-trained athletes.…”

“…Upon delivery of the urine samples, 1 ml of urine was centrifuged at 21,000 g for 25 min at a temperature of 4 °C. The supernatant was collected and stored at − 80 °C until analyses of the sugar proves by UPLC–MS/MS as previously described 34 .…”

The impact of acute and chronic stress on gastrointestinal physiology and function: a microbiota–gut–brain axis perspective

“…However, this may not be the case for all stressors. For example, in a small within‐subjects study which examined healthy participants following a tandem skydive, this stress exposure did not increase gastroduodenal, small intestinal or colonic permeability (Roca Rubio et al., 2021). Interestingly, Vanuytsel et al.…”