2024-09-03 17:46:00
In a study conducted with 11-year-old children, the Basque Environmental Health Research Group of the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU) has concluded that the greatest behavioral problems are related to high levels of cortisol in hair.
Cortisol is a hormone secreted by the body to respond to stressful situations, so measuring the concentration of cortisol in the hair is very useful to analyze chronic stress. It is usually found in the blood, saliva and urine, among other places, and indicates a low level of cortisol. ; However, cortisol accumulates in the hair, and it indicates the degree of long-term stress, that is, chronic stress.
The Basque Environmental Health Research Group (B-EHRG) has used hair samples from 11-year-olds to assess chronic stress. To do this, it has extracted data from the INMA (Environment and Child) project, which collects all kinds of data on children and families, starting with the mother’s pregnancy, for long-term research purposes.
Therefore, the study concluded that, first, major behavioral problems are related to high levels of cortisol in the hair. In addition, they found that maternal stress was related to children’s behavior problems. This means that maternal stress can also influence children’s cortisol levels through their behavior problems.
Second, they also found something they didn’t expect: Greater exposure to environmental noise was associated with lower levels of cortisol. They found that the higher the noise level, the lower the cortisol levels. When doing the analysis by sex, this relationship is only significant in the case of men.
According to the researchers, initial acute stress caused by noise can cause a temporary increase in cortisol levels, but chronic stress caused by prolonged exposure to high levels of noise can decrease cortisol levels. To confirm the unexpected noise-related results, they will conduct the same research within the wider European athlete project (Horizon 2020).
Broadly speaking, the study discovered these two factors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other related factors. It is important to give a broader perspective to these studies by taking into account more than one stress. Therefore, they created a model to investigate the relationship between environmental, social and individual factors and the concentration of cortisol in children’s hair. They consider all the factors that can affect stress and appear in the literature: for example, green and blue spaces, air pollution, environmental noise; family and school relationships, parental stress level; sleep problem, physical activity, age, sex, etc.
Future research should use a more complex approach to better understand the determinants of cortisol in children’s hair; in fact, simultaneous exposure to various environmental, social and individual factors can affect the concentration of cortisol in the hair.
The study concluded that exposure to certain substances that can cause chronic stress can determine the concentration of cortisol in the hair and this changes the behavior of children.
This article was published in the journal Hormones and Behavior.
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