Context: Biological stress is related to cardiovascular disease in adults. The associations of stress with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases may originate in childhood.
Objective: This work aims to examine the associations of hair cortisol concentrations at age 6 years with cardiometabolic risk factors at ages 6 and 10 years.
Methods: Cortisol concentrations were measured in hair of 6-year-old children (n = 2598) participating in the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Main outcome measures included blood pressure, heart rate, concentrations of insulin, glucose, lipids, and C-reactive protein in blood at ages 6 and 10 years.
Results: Higher hair cortisol concentrations at age 6 years were associated with higher systolic blood pressure at age 10 years (difference 0.17 SD score; 95% CI, 0.03-0.31). The association attenuated into nonsignificance after adjustment for childhood body mass index (BMI) at age 6 years. Higher hair cortisol concentrations at age 6 years were associated with an increase in total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol between ages 6 and 10 years but not with those measurements at age 6 or 10 years. Hair cortisol concentrations were not associated with other cardiometabolic risk factors at age 6 or 10 years.
Conclusion: Hair cortisol concentrations were not independent of BMI associated with cardiometabolic risk factors at 6 or 10 years. The associations of biological stress with cardiometabolic risk factors may develop at later ages.
Keywords: C-reactive protein; blood pressure; cardiometabolic risk; child; cholesterol; glucose; hair cortisol; heart rate; insulin; lipids.
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society.