Human nail cortisol as a retrospective biomarker of chronic stress: A systematic review

Brief Report: Above and Beyond Safety: Psychosocial and Biobehavioral Impact of Autism-Assistance Dogs on Autistic Children and their Families

“…Although we planned to measure hair cortisol concentration (HCC) only originally, hair collection from some of our initial participants proved to be prohibitively difficult and/or not possible due to lack of scalp hair. Subsequently, participants were also given the option to submit fingernail clippings (Phillips et al, 2021 ) as an alternative method (Liu & Doan, 2019 ). Participants provided the same (hair or nail) samples for their pre- and post-AAD measures.…”

“…In addition to assessment data collected via parent-report (child) and self-report (parent), we included a biological measure of chronic stress in both parents and children to augment our understanding of how AADs may affect physiological health. Chronic cortisol concentrations (CCC) assayed from a single collection of a keratinized matrix (e.g., hair/nails) sample have been shown to represent an accumulation of cortisol secretions over a time frame of months (Meyer & Novak, 2012 ; Phillips et al, 2021 ). In contrast, cortisol samples collected from saliva or urine are limited in time (< a few days) and can require repeated measurements across 24-hours over several days to obtain average chronic concentrations (Wosuet al, 2013 ).…”

Grand Challenge in Adrenal Endocrinology: Is the Legacy of the Past a Challenge for the Future of Precision Medicine?

“…Along with the advantages of being noninvasive methods that do not require special storage conditions, the use of hair or nail samples to assess cortisol concentration has the important advantage of giving retrospective information about the accumulation of cortisol, allowing for the evaluation of cortisol secretion in the long term. Although to date, this information is available mainly on stress disorders, in the future, the use of hair and nail cortisol determination could become important even for the evaluation of patients with hypercortisolism or hypocortisolism (47)(48)(49).…”

Higher Levels of Stress-Related Hair Steroid Hormones Are Associated with the Increased SCORE2 Risk Prediction Algorithm in Apparently Healthy Women

“…The major obstacle in chronic stress research is the lack of a universal and validated stress measurement tool or biomarker, as distinct studies use different chronic stress evaluation techniques, including: self-reported questionnaires (e.g., Perceived Stress Scale or the self-reported Life Events Checklist) [ 12 , 13 ]; interviews (e.g., UCLA Life Stress Interview) [ 14 ]; and allostatic load index calculation [ 15 ] or measurement of cortisol in a variety of biological samples [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. In the last decade, analysis of cortisol in scalp hair was found to be the most promising methodological approach for assessing chronic stress level.…”