Diurnal Cortisol Slopes and Mental and Physical Health Outcomes:A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
By E. Adam, M. Quinn, Royette Tavernier, Mollie T. McQuillan, Katie Dahlke, Kirsten E. Gilbert. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2017
789 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Changes in levels of the stress-sensitive hormone cortisol from morning to evening are referred to as diurnal cortisol slopes. Flatter diurnal cortisol slopes have been proposed as a mediator between chronic psychosocial stress and poor mental and physical health outcomes in past theory and research. Surprisingly, neither a systematic nor a meta-analytic review of associations between diurnal cortisol slopes and health has been conducted to date, despite extensive literature on the topic. The current systematic review and meta-analysis examined associations between diurnal cortisol slopes and physical and mental health outcomes. Analyses were based on 179 associations from 80 studies for the time period up to January 31, 2015. Results indicated a significant association between flatter diurnal cortisol slopes and poorer health across all studies (average effect size, r = .147). Further, flatter diurnal cortisol slopes were associated with poorer health in 10 out of 12 subtypes of emotional and physical health outcomes examined. Among these subtypes, the effect size was largest for immune/inflammation outcomes (r = .288). Potential moderators of the associations between diurnal cortisol slopes and health outcomes were examined, including type of slope measure and study quality indices. The possible roles of flatter slopes as either a marker or a mechanism for disease etiology are discussed. We argue that flatter diurnal cortisol slopes may both reflect and contribute to stress-related dysregulation of central and peripheral circadian mechanisms, with corresponding downstream effects on multiple aspects of biology, behavior, and health.
Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, General Health Professions
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f235127ddee597e532299932869502ac7345141
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Behavioral Neuroscience
In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
In General Health Professions
Citations in the corpus
- Stress and Health: A Review of Psychobiological Processes. (2020, background): “Adam et al. (2017) finish their review by introducing a new concept called “stress-related circadian dysregulation (SCiD) (p. 37)” and argue that the existing research showing that flatter diurnal cortisol slopes are associated with modifications of circadian biology is a sign of SCiD.”