The developmental course of salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol from 12 to 36 months: Relations with early poverty and later behavior problems

Salivary alpha amylase diurnal pattern and stress response are associated with body mass index in low-income preschool-aged children

“…As others with similar findings of blunted stress responses across both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic nervous systems have also speculated (Lovallo, 2011; Jones et al, 2012; Pervanidou and Chrousos, 2012), we hypothesize that attenuated stress reactivity may reflect a failing stress response as a consequence of down-regulation of stress receptors responsible for stress activation following chronic stress exposure. Growing up in poverty can expose children to chronic stressors that can affect biological stress responses (Evans and Kim, 2007; Hill-Soderlund et al, 2014), which may be the case for some children in our sample. If the stress response system becomes blunted due to repeated stimulation, the system in question may be limited in its ability to cope adaptively with stress when needed.…”

“…Our finding that lower morning sAA and more rapid increase across the day were associated with higher BMIz could also be cautiously interpreted as consistent with this perspective. The few extant studies of diurnal sAA and stress in children (Wolf et al, 2008; Hill-Soderlund et al, 2014) suggest that lower sAA levels are associated with chronic stress. Careful longitudinal and additional mechanistic work is critical in order to test this hypothesis further and to disentangle these associations.…”

“…Our sample was also limited to low-income preschool-aged children who had been enrolled in Head Start, which limits generalizability to other developmental periods and other socioeconomic circumstances. Given that chronic stressors, including poverty, have been associated with low diurnal sAA levels (Wolf, 2008; Rohleder et al, 2009; Hill-Soderlund et al, 2014), it is important to investigate sAA-BMI associations in less-stressed populations. Children in our study did not show a strong response to the stressor as is typical of young children this age (Gunnar et al, 2009), and we only obtained measures of diurnal sAA and sAA reactivity to a stressor on single occasions, which limits our ability to draw conclusions about individual variability in response to different stressors, stability of associations with adiposity over time, or bidirectional associations.…”

“…The methods used to measure SNS functioning directly are typically fairly invasive (e.g., venipuncture, heart rate, skin conductance). As sAA is measured in saliva, it is more easily used in stress research with young children (Hill-Soderlund et al, 2014). …”

“…Lower basal sAA patterns have been associated with chronic stress exposure in children (Hill-Soderlund et al, 2014; Wolf, Nicholls, and Chen, 2008). Also in children, attenuated sAA reactivity in response to stress has been associated with more disruptive behavior (Granger et al, 2007; Susman et al, 2010; de Vries-Bouw et al, 2012), more anger and impulsivity (Spinrad et al, 2009), and weaker ability to delay gratification (Lisonbee et al, 2010).…”