ArticleStress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress2019
Greater lifetime stress exposure predicts blunted cortisol but heightened DHEA responses to acute stress.
Article in Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
63 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 101 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cortisol and development of depression in adolescence and young adulthood - a systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Pooled it
- Men of Color Health Awareness intervention: changes in adrenocortical activity assessed using fingernail cortisol.Frontiers in public health · 2025Trial
- The Stress and Adversity Inventory for Adults (Adult STRAIN) in German: An overview and initial validation.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Salivary cortisol reactivity to stress in pregnancy: A scoping review.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- From lifetime stressor exposure to daily stress experience: Associations with hair cortisol.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Heterogeneous Effects of Environmental Exposure to Gun Violence on Adolescent Problem Behavior.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2026Article
- A network analysis of lifetime stressor exposure, mental health, well-being, and immune cell mobilisation to acute stressors in young adults.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Linking hair cortisol and life stress: The role of stress reactivity and habituation.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Male Stress Is Associated with Ovarian and Endometrial Responses in ICSI Cycles: Is Seminal Plasma the Linchpin?International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Lifetime Stressor Exposure Profiles and Trait Risk for Substance Use in Young Adults.Substance use & misuse · 2026Article
- Intersecting race/ethnicity and gender in physiological dysregulation profiles and associations with socioeconomic status among older adults in the United States.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Lifetime stressor exposure is related to suicidality in autistic adults: A multinational study.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Acute Stress and Autoimmune Markers: Evaluating the Psychoneuroimmunology Axis in Firefighter Recruits.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Lifetime Stressor Severity and Diurnal Cortisol in Older African American Adults: A Comparison of Three Theoretical Models.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Article
- Negative Life Events as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Optimism and Cardiovascular Reactivity.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Associations Between Stress and Hair Cortisol and Their Relationship to Alcohol Use Among Adolescents and Young Adults: An Epidemiological Cohort Study.Addiction biology · 2025Article
- Acute Stress Effect on Delay Discounting and Cannabis Demand Among Individuals Endorsing High-Frequency Cannabis Use.Cannabis (Albuquerque, N.M.) · 2025Article
- The Stress and Adversity Inventory for Adults (Adult STRAIN) in Korean: Initial Validation and Associations with Psychiatric Disorders.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Lifetime stressor exposure is associated with greater rewarding effects of stress-related eating.Physiology & behavior · 2024Article
- Cumulative lifetime stressor exposure impairs stimulus-response but not contextual learning.Scientific reports · 2024Article
3 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 at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although prior research has examined how early adversity and chronic stress exposure relate to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responses to acute stress, to date, no studies have examined how stressors occurring over the entire lifespan predict such responses. To address this issue, we recruited 61 healthy young adults and measured their exposure to 55 different types of acute life events and chronic difficulties occurring over the lifespan. In addition, we characterized differences in participants' HPA axis responses to acute stress by measuring their salivary cortisol and DHEA responses to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups. Greater cumulative stress exposure was associated with a blunted cortisol response, but a heightened DHEA response, to the acute stressor. Moreover, it was participants' exposure to these stressors (i.e., lifetime count), not their perceived severity, which predicted their cortisol and DHEA responses to acute stress. Furthermore, differential effects were observed by stress exposure domain. Notably, only adulthood and marital/partner stressors significantly predicted cortisol responses to acute stress, whereas stress was more uniformly associated with DHEA responses to the acute stressor. These results thus reveal how cumulative stress exposure is associated with HPA axis responsivity to acute stress, while highlighting the fact that different stressors may have substantially different associations with these biological outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.