A study released in September of 2010 shows a correlation between levels of the stress hormone cortisol in hair and the risk of a heart attack. Study authors say that testing for cortisol levels may one day determine when that heart attack might come. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and posted in the journal Stress.
Cortisol is released by the adrenal gland in response to stress and currently measured through blood, saliva and urine samples, but those results can only indicate stress levels for a brief period of time, days at most. Testing hair, researchers say, gives a picture of stress levels for six months or more.
Stress Levels Measurable in Hair
Dr. Gideon Koren, a well-known Canadian pediatrician who has been a part of the publishing of some 100 papers, was the lead author of the study. Stress, Dr. Koren said in a press release, is an illness and it is one that has quickly become one of the deadliest in the world.
"Stress is, by everyone's agreement now, probably one of the biggest illnesses or conditions of the 21st century," Koren wrote. "Stress at work, stress at family life, financial stress, poverty. Intuitively we know stress is not good for you but it's not easy to measure."
Dr. Koren, who holds the Ivy Chair in Molecular Toxicology at Western's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, said using hair to measure your stress levels comes from knowing how it grows. "We know that, on average, hair grows one centimetre a month, and so if we take a hair sample six centimetres long, we can determine stress levels for six months by measuring the cortisol level in the hair."
Cortisol Levels in Heart Attack Victims
The group studied two different groups of 56 men each who had all been admitted to the Meir Medical Centre in Israel. One group had been admitted after suffering a heart attack, the other group of 56 were admitted for a variety of reasons but none for a heart attack. Every subject submitted a hair sample. The researchers measured levels of cortisol in the hair and discovered that the members of the group admitted due to heart attack had higher levels of cortisol in their hair than the members of the control group who had been admitted for other ailments.
The study notes that environmental, medical and genetic factors such as diabetes, smoking, blood pressure and genetic factors also contribute to heart disease but these were elements found in both groups. After taking these factors into account the strongest predictor of heart attack was hair.
Studying Hair, Measuring Heart Attack Likelihood
Next they intend to study woman's hair, Dr. Koren said, and study hair from other areas of the body. The group intends to work toward coming up with the kind of results that will enable them to warn patients about an impending heart attack simply by testing their hair.
"We demonstrated elevated hair cortisol concentrations in patients with AMI (heart attack)," a summary of the study reads. "This suggests that chronic stress, as assessed by increased hair cortisol in the three months prior to the event, may be a contributing factor for AMI."
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