Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Sci Rep. 2019 Aug 19;9(1):11997. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-48517-2.
Quantitating glucocorticoids (GCs) in hairs is a popular method for assessing chronic stress in studies of humans and animals alike. The cause-and-effect relationship between stress and elevated GC levels in hairs, sampled weeks later, is however hard to prove. This systematic review evaluated the evidence supporting hair glucocorticoids (hGCs) as a biomarker of stress. Only a relatively small number of controlled studies employing hGC analyses have been published, and the quality of the evidence is compromised by unchecked sources of bias. Subjects exposed to stress mostly demonstrate elevated levels of hGCs, and these concentrations correlate significantly with GC concentrations in serum, saliva and feces. This supports hGCs as a biomarker of stress, but the dataset provided no evidence that hGCs are a marker of stress outside of the immediate past. Only in cases where the stressor persisted at the time of hair sampling could a clear link between stress and hGCs be established.
定量检测毛发中的糖皮质激素（GCs）是一种在人类和动物的慢性应激研究中评估的常用方法。然而，很难证明压力和几周后采样的毛发中 GC 水平升高之间的因果关系。本系统评价评估了毛发糖皮质激素（hGCs）作为应激生物标志物的证据。只有少数发表的使用 hGC 分析的对照研究，并且由于不受控制的偏倚来源，证据的质量受到损害。大多数暴露于应激的受试者表现出 hGC 水平升高，并且这些浓度与血清、唾液和粪便中的 GC 浓度显著相关。这支持 hGCs 作为应激生物标志物，但该数据集没有提供 hGCs 是过去应激之外的应激标志物的证据。只有在应激源在毛发采样时持续存在的情况下，才能在应激和 hGCs 之间建立明确的联系。
