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Hair cortisol during adolescence possible marker for depression

The concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in the hair during adolescence was associated with depressive symptoms, researchers reported in Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Hair cortisol, a retrospective and long-term measure of mean cortisol level, may be a useful biomarker for depressive symptoms, according to the researchers; however, research is lacking in youth samples and mixed in adult samples.

"It'd be really ideal to have an objective measurement, because using subjective measures of stress is problematic, particularly with children and teens," Jodi L. Ford, PhD, RN, associate professor of nursing at Ohio State University, said in a press release.

To evaluate hair cortisol as a predictor of depressive symptoms, Ford and colleagues measured depressive symptoms via a 9-item short-form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale in a representative community sample of 432 youth aged 11 to 17 years. Hair was cut from the posterior vertex area of the scalp, then was washed, minced, ground and tested with Salimetrics Cortisol Enzyme Immunoassay Kit to determine hair cortisol levels.

Analysis revealed no significant linear relationship in the first model between hair cortisol and depressive symptoms (b = –0.036; P=.13); however, in the second model, the researchers found a marginally significant linear association (b = –0.044; P =.06) as well as a significant curvilinear relationship (b=0.039; P =.005) between hair cortisol and depressive symptoms.

After graphing the results to depict a u-shaped curve, Ford and colleagues also found that hair cortisol levels on the lower and higher end of the distribution predicted depressive symptoms in the sample.

“This study opens up a lot of future research questions and illustrates that the relationship between cortisol levels and depression isn't necessarily a linear one," Ford said in the release.

"It may be that low cortisol is bad and high cortisol is bad and there's a middle level that is normal,” she continued. “It's hard to know why this is without more research, but it's possible that there's a blunting of the stress response in some people, lowering cortisol production or changing how it is processed. Maybe the body is not using cortisol in the way that it should in some cases." – by Savannah Demko

Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.