ArticleComprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology2021
Religion, spirituality and diurnal rhythms of salivary cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone in postmenopausal women.
Article in Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychobiological benefits of Dhikrullah breathing for emotional and cognitive recovery.Dementia & neuropsychologia · 2026Article
- Religion and Spirituality as Social Determinants of Sleep Health Across the Globe: A Narrative Review.Current sleep medicine reports · 2026Review
- The Structure of Religion and Spirituality in a Diverse Sample of Adults in the U.S.: A Report on Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses in the Study on Stress, Spirituality, and Health.Psychology of religion and spirituality · 2025Article
- Relationships between burnout and coping strategies among assistant medical officers in Malaysian public healthcare facilities.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundReligion and spirituality (R/S) are important resources for coping with stress and are hypothesized to influence health outcomes via modulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, though this has not been evaluated extensively. In this study, we examined associations between several measures of religiosity or spirituality (R/S) and three HPA axis biomarkers: cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and cortisol: DHEA ratio.
methodsSample included 216 female postmenopausal Nurses' Health Study II participants who provided up to five timed saliva samples: immediately upon awakening, 45 min, 4 h, and 10 h after waking, and prior to going to sleep during a single day in 2013. Multivariable-adjusted linear mixed models with piecewise cubic spline functions and adjustment for potential covariates were used to estimate the cross-sectional associations of eight R/S measures with diurnal rhythms of cortisol, DHEA, and the cortisol/DHEA ratio.
resultsThere was little evidence of association between the eight R/S measures analyzed and diurnal rhythms of cortisol, DHEA, and the cortisol/DHEA ratio. Women who reported that R/S was very involved in understanding or dealing with stressful situations had slower night rise in cortisol than those who did not. Greater levels of religious struggles were associated with higher cortisol levels throughout the day. Higher non-theistic daily spiritual experiences scores were associated with slower DHEA night rise, and a higher cortisol/DHEA ratio upon waking and at night. However, these associations were significantly attenuated when we excluded women reporting bedtimes at least 30 min later than usual.
conclusionObserved associations were driven by those with late sleep schedules, and given the number of comparisons made, could be due to chance. Future research using larger, more diverse samples of individuals is needed to better understand the relationship between R/S and HPA axis biomarkers.
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