ArticleBJPsych open2020
Comparison of short-term (saliva) and long-term (hair) cortisol levels in out-patients with melancholic and non-melancholic major depression.
Article in BJPsych open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are psychosocial factors and menopause symptoms related to hair cortisol concentrations among midlife Latinas? Results from theComprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Hair cortisol-to-cortisone ratio and dental caries in adolescents: a cross-sectional analysis of glucocorticoid imbalance and caries prevalence.BMC oral health · 2026Article
- Methods for quantifying the heterogeneity of psychopathology.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- The moderating role of hair cortisol in the association of early and recent stress with stress-related phenotypes.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Hair cortisol change at COVID-19 pandemic onset predicts burnout among health personnel.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- The neuroendocrinology of stress: the stress-related continuum of chronic disease development.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- Examining the Relationship Between Hair Cortisol With Stress-Related and Transdiagnostic Subclinical Measures.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMajor depressive episodes (MDEs) show diverse cortisol level alterations. Heterogeneity in symptom profiles, symptom severity and cortisol specimens may explain these heterogeneous results. Less severely ill out-patients with a non-melancholic MDE (NM-MDE) may have a variation in the rhythm of cortisol secretion rather than in its concentration.
methodCortisol measures were taken (a) over a short-term period (12 h) by measuring daily salivary output using the area under the curve with respect to the ground (AUCg) and (b) over a long-term period (3 months) in hair. Additionally, cortisol reactivity measures in saliva - the cortisol awakening response and the 30 min delta cortisol secretion after awakening (DELTA) - were investigated in 19 patients with a melancholic MDE (M-MDE) and 52 with a NM-MDE, and in 40 matched controls who were recruited from the UK and Chile. Depression severity scores were correlated with different cortisol measures.
resultsThe NM-MDE group showed a decreased AUCg in comparison with controls (P = 0.02), but normal cortisol reactivity and long-term cortisol levels. The M-MDE group did not exhibit any significant cortisol alterations nor an association with depression severity scores. Higher Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score was linked with decreased hair cortisol concentration (HCC, P = 0.05) and higher DELTA (P = 0.04) in NM-MDEs, whereas decreased HCC was the sole alteration associated with out-patients with severe M-MDEs.
conclusionsThe contrasting short- and long-term cortisol output results are compatible with an alteration in the rhythm of cortisol secretion in NM-MDEs. This alteration may consist of large and/or intense episodes of hypercortisolaemia in moderate NM-MDEs and frequent, but brief and sharp early-morning DELTAs in its severe form. These changes may reflect the effects of environmental factors or episodes of nocturnal hypercortisolaemia that were not measured by the short-term samples used in this study.
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