Maternal caregivers have confluence of altered cortisol, high reward-driven eating, and worse metabolic health.

Animal models have shown that chronic stress increases cortisol, which contributes to overeating of highly palatable food, increased abdominal fat and lower cortisol reactivity. Few studies in humans have simultaneously examined these trajectories. We examined premenopausal women, either mothers of children with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (n = 92) or mothers of neurotypical children (n = 91). At baseline and 2-years, we assessed hair cortisol, metabolic health, and reward-based eating. We compared groups cross-sectionally and prospectively, accounting for BMI change. Caregivers, relative to controls, had lower cumulative hair cortisol at each time point, with no decreases over time. Caregivers also had stable levels of poor metabolic functioning and greater reward-based eating across both time points, and evidenced increased abdominal fat prospectively (all ps ≤.05), independent of change in BMI. This pattern of findings suggest that individuals under chronic stress, such as caregivers, would benefit from tailored interventions focusing on better regulation of stress and eating in tandem to prevent early onset of metabolic disease, regardless of weight status

Correction: Maternal caregivers have confluence of altered cortisol, high reward-driven eating, and worse metabolic health.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216541.]

Impact of a nutritional supplement during gestation and early childhood on child salivary cortisol, hair cortisol, and telomere length at 4–6 years of age: a follow-up of a randomized controlled trial

Dysregulation of the stress response can occur early in life and may be affected by nutrition. Our objective was to evaluate the long-term effect of nutritional supplementation during gestation and early childhood on child cortisol and buccal telomere length (a marker of cellular aging) at 4–6 years of age. We conducted a follow-up study of children born to women who participated in a nutritional supplementation trial in Ghana. In one group, a lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) was provided to women during gestation and the first 6 months postpartum and to their infants from age 6 to 18 months. The control groups received either iron and folic acid (IFA) during gestation or multiple micronutrients during gestation and the first 6 months postpartum, with no infant supplementation. At age 4–6 years, we measured hair cortisol, buccal telomere length, and salivary cortisol before and after a stressor. Salivary cortisol was available for 364 children across all three trial arms and hair cortisol and telomere length were available for a subset of children (n = 275 and 278, respectively) from the LNS and IFA groups. Telomere length, salivary cortisol, and hair cortisol did not differ by supplementation group. Overall, these findings suggest that nutritional supplementation given during gestation and early childhood does not have an effect on child stress response or chronic stress in children at 4–6 years

Correction: Maternal caregivers have confluence of altered cortisol, high reward-driven eating, and worse metabolic health.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216541.]

Maternal caregivers have confluence of altered cortisol, high reward-driven eating, and worse metabolic health.

Animal models have shown that chronic stress increases cortisol, which contributes to overeating of highly palatable food, increased abdominal fat and lower cortisol reactivity. Few studies in humans have simultaneously examined these trajectories. We examined premenopausal women, either mothers of children with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (n = 92) or mothers of neurotypical children (n = 91). At baseline and 2-years, we assessed hair cortisol, metabolic health, and reward-based eating. We compared groups cross-sectionally and prospectively, accounting for BMI change. Caregivers, relative to controls, had lower cumulative hair cortisol at each time point, with no decreases over time. Caregivers also had stable levels of poor metabolic functioning and greater reward-based eating across both time points, and evidenced increased abdominal fat prospectively (all ps ≤.05), independent of change in BMI. This pattern of findings suggest that individuals under chronic stress, such as caregivers, would benefit from tailored interventions focusing on better regulation of stress and eating in tandem to prevent early onset of metabolic disease, regardless of weight status

Sex, Diet, and the Social Environment: Factors Influencing Hair Cortisol Concentration in Free-Ranging Black Bears (Ursus americanus).

Increasingly, measures of glucocorticoid levels (e.g., cortisol), key components of the neuroendocrine stress axis, are being used to measure past hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity to index psychological and physiological stress exhibited by wildlife for assessing individual and population-level well-being. However, many intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect HPA activity in animals. Using American black bears (Ursus americanus; n = 116) as an ecological model and hair cortisol concentration (HCC) as an integrative measure of past HPA activity, we evaluated the influence of diet, sex and the social environment on black bear HCC in a free-ranging population that spanned adjoining ecoregions with differing densities of potential conspecific and heterospecific competitors. HCC varied by sex, with female HCC ranging from 0.6 to 10.7 pg/mg (median = 4.5 ± 1.2 mean absolute deviation [MAD]) and male HCC ranging from 0.5 to 35.1 pg/mg (median = 6.2 ± 2.6 MAD). We also observed a three-way interaction among sex, δ14C and ecoregion, which may indicate that some differences in HCC between female and male black bears results from variability in the nutritional needs of larger-bodied males relative to smaller-bodied females, slight differences in food resources use between ecoregions as well as sex-based differences regarding the social environment. Once we understand what drives sex-specific differences in HCC, HCC may aid our understanding of the physiological responses by bears and other wildlife to diverse environmental challenges

Chemical processing and shampooing impact cortisol measured in human hair

Purpose: The assessment of cortisol in hair has gained popularity as a means to measure retrospective hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity in a number of species; however, cortisol levels from human hair subjected to typical chemicals for cosmetic or hygienic purposes may be altered by the chemicals used. The purposed of this study was to determine if exposure of hair to chemical processing or shampooing impacts cortisol values. Methods: Human hair not exposed to prior chemical processing was cut from the posterior vertex region of the head of 106 human subjects as close to the scalp as possible. The hair sample was divided into 4-6 full-length clusters depending on quantity of hair available. Each hair sample was processed for baseline (native) cortisol and remaining clusters were exposed to five standard chemical hair treatments (Experiment 1) or were shampooed 15 or 30 times (Experiment 2). Hair was ground and cortisol levels were determined by enzyme immunoassay (EIA). Comparisons were made between native hair and processed hair using paired t-tests and Pearson correlation. Results: Hair cortisol as assessed by EIA was significantly altered by chemical processing but in somewhat different ways. Exposure to bleach (harshest exposure), demi-perm (least exposure) or 15-30 shampoos resulted in a significant decrease in cortisol level while exposure to varying percentages of peroxides increased cortisol measured. There were no differences in cortisol levels associated with sex, age or tobacco use in the native hair for this particular group. Conclusion: Chemical processing and frequent shampooing affect cortisol levels measured in hair. Chemically processed or excessively shampooed hair should be avoided when recruiting subjects for hair cortisol studies