Hair and stress

New research shows our hair could be key to measuring the level of stress. The study found that the stress hormone cortisol could be measured in hair, giving the first long-term estimates of chronic stress that does not rely on memory of someone. High cortisol levels in hair associated with heart attacks.
The researchers say this discovery could provide new ways to investigate chronic stress. If the results can be repeated, the test can be used to identify physicians at high risk of heart disease.
The hair on your hair to death, but the hair follicles, or roots of living. Elements such as cortisol, which can be released into the bloodstream when you are stressed, can seep into the hair follicles of the small blood vessels in the scalp. As hair grows, cortisol traces trapped in the shaft, providing a way for researchers to measure the hormone from time to time.
Because hair grows approximately 1 cm per month, most people have in the estimated levels of cortisol in the hair in months. Measurement of cortisol in the blood or urine prior to recording the number of hormone only a few hours or days.
"(Hair) told me what happened to you during the 10 months. Even I could see how things change every month," said Gideon Koren, professor of children's health and toxicology from the University of Western Ontario, told LiveScience.
Koren, before using hair samples to measure the toxicity of drugs in infants whose mothers used cocaine and heroin during pregnancy.
She learned that other colleagues use a similar method to detect steroids in bodybuilders. If hair can accurately measure steroids, it may also retain other hormones, like cortisol.
Previous studies have found that cortisol survive in the hair for at least six months, and in the case of some women of Peru, until 1500 years.
Hair and heart attack
Koren and his colleagues took hair samples from 120 men who checked in the unit of heart disease Meir Medical Center in Israel. Half of the men examined had a heart attack, while the other half had been diagnosed with other illnesses such as chest pain and infection. Only men who studied for heart attacks more common in men, and because the differences between male and female hormones can not symmetrical with the results.
The researchers analyzed levels of cortisol within 3 cm of hair closest to the scalp, representing the patient's life during the last three months. They found that higher cortisol levels in men who have heart attacks than men who have other illnesses.
When the researchers divided the men in the quarter based on their cortisol levels, they found that men who have the lowest rate, 32 percent suffered a heart attack. In men in the top quarter of cortisol, the number increased to 68 percent.
The results held even after controlling other risk factors for heart attack such as cholesterol levels and body mass index. "Of course, it's not the only one, but cortisol is an important determinant of acute myocardial infarction (the technical term for heart attack)," Koren said.
Koren warned, the results need to be repeated with the patient in large numbers before the test applies Hair cortisol. Other studies have shown that cortisol levels in hair in accordance with the levels of cortisol in the blood, but Koren and his colleagues are not sure if their results would apply to women. They also did not test whether hair cortisol levels in accordance with the subjective feelings of stress a person.
Koren said, however, if the test is successful, it could be a non-invasive way to measure the stress all the time, it is important for the memory of long-term stress people are not always reliable.
"That could be another tool for us, if possible and not expensive. We need to have research good very connected relationship between stress and mental health problems in women with stage of reproductive life is different," said Alicja Fishell, a psychiatrist at the Women's College Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
Fisnell Koren had worked with previously but not currently involved in research. He said the discovery could someday prove useful for researching in the field, reproductive health, because the effects of chronic stress in pregnant women and fetuses are not well understood.