メディエイゴ

Researchers(1) at The University of Western Ontario have provided the first direct evidence using a biological marker(2), to show chronic(3) stress(4) plays an important role in(5) heart attacks(6).

Stressors(7) such as job, marital(8) and financial problems have been linked to the increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease(9) including heart attack. But there hasn’t been a biological marker to measure chronic stress.

Gideon Koren and Stan Van Uum developed a method to measure cortisol(10) levels in hair providing an accurate assessment(11) of stress levels in the months prior to(12) an acute(13) event(14) such as a heart attack. The research is published online(15) in the journal Stress.

Cortisol is considered to be a stress hormone(16). Its secretion(17) is increased during times of stress. Traditionally(18) it’s been measured in serum(19), urine(20) and saliva(21), but that only shows stress at the time of measurement, not over longer periods of time. Cortisol is also captured in the hair shaft(22).

”Intuitively(23) we know stress is not good for you, but it’s not easy to measure,” explains Koren, who holds the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology(24) at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry(25).

“We know that on average(26), hair grows one centimetre (cm) a month, and so if we take a hair sample six cm long, we can determine stress levels for six months by measuring the cortisol level in the hair.”

In the study, hair samples three cm long were collected from 56 male adults who were admitted to(27) the Meir Medical Centre in Kfar-Saba, Israel suffering heart attacks.