ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2013
Daytime trajectories of cortisol: demographic and socioeconomic differences--findings from the National Study of Daily Experiences.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Individual differences in glucocorticoid regulation: Does it relate to disease risk and resilience?Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2020Pooled it
- A pilot randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction for caregivers of family members with dementia.Aging & mental health · 2016Trial
- Daily salivary cortisol patterns in midlife women with hot flashes.Clinical endocrinology · 2016Trial
- High Cardiorespiratory Fitness Is Negatively Associated with Daily Cortisol Output in Healthy Aging Men.PloS one · 2015Trial
- Bias in hair cortisol measures for psychological stress: Self vs. professional collection.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Living in Historically Redlined Neighborhoods and the Cognitive Function of Black and White Adults.Journal of aging and health · 2026Article
- Acute normobaric hypoxia as a reversible probe of oxygen-limitation contributions to cognitive aging.Aging brain · 2026Review
- Daily Stress and Cortisol Patterns in Midlife and Older Parents of Children With Developmental Disabilities.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Sex Differences in Basal Cortisol Levels Across Body Fluid Compartments in a Cross-sectional Study of Healthy Adults.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2024Article
- Current Challenges and Future Directions in the Assessment of Glucocorticoid Status.Endocrine reviews · 2024Review
- The associations of spirituality and Hispanic ethnicity with neuroendocrine biomarkers among patients with colorectal cancer.Journal of psychosomatic research · 2024Observational
- Perinatal Predictors and Mediators of Attachment Patterns in Preschool Children: Exploration of Children's Contributions in Interactions with Mothers.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Postpartum symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress: differential relationships to women's cortisol profiles.Archives of women's mental health · 2024Article
- The role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in depression across the female reproductive lifecycle: current knowledge and future directions.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Review
- Sex-related differences in the associations between diurnal cortisol pattern and social and emotional loneliness in older adults.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Cortisol and cardiometabolic disease: a target for advancing health equity.Trends in endocrinology and metabolism: TEM · 2022Review
- Towards A Socioeconomic Model of Sleep Health among the Canadian Population: A Systematic Review of the Relationship between Age, Income, Employment, Education, Social Class, Socioeconomic Status and Sleep Disparities.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2022Review
- Diurnal dynamic range as index of dysregulation of system dynamics. A cortisol examplar using data from the Study of Midlife in the United States.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Review
- Advancing health equity through integrated biology and population health research: A community-based sample cortisol feasibility and exploratory study.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Effects of Nature-Based Intervention in Occupational Health Care on Stress - A Finnish Pilot Study Comparing Stress Evaluation Methods.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2022Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cortisol's daytime rhythm is thought to be altered by aging and by exposure to chronic stress. However, measurement of an individual's usual cortisol rhythm is hampered by the effects of acute stressors, by differences between working days and weekends, by between-day variation in waking time and sleep duration, by variability in cortisol sampling times, and by possible variability in the timing of cortisol peak and nadir. Therefore, to determine differences in the usual daytime cortisol rhythm by age, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity, we measured salivary cortisol levels at four time-points, repeated over four days that included both weekdays and weekend days, in 1693 men and women from a national sample, and used three alternate growth curve specifications for the underlying cortisol rhythm (linear spline, quadratic spline, piece-wise linear-cubic) in order to minimize the impact of sample timing and other methodological issues. Model-predicted mean values of (and demographic and socioeconomic differences in) cortisol peak, nadir, and area under the curve (AUC) were nearly identical across model specifications. Older age and male gender were independently associated with higher cortisol peak, nadir, and AUC. Low education and minority race/ethnicity status were independently associated with lower cortisol peak and higher nadir, but were not associated with AUC. We also found significant cortisol peak and AUC associations with waking time, sleep duration, and workday vs. weekend day status, suggesting the importance of measuring these confounders and of collecting cortisol measurements over multiple days in research studies. We conclude that daytime cortisol levels are higher in older age and in men compared to women, and that the daytime cortisol rhythm is flatter (more blunted) in less privileged segments of society. Flattening of daytime cortisol rhythms may represent one mechanism by which social stressors lead to poor health outcomes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.