S. Porta et al., DETECTION AND EVALUATION OF PERSISTING STRESS-INDUCED HORMONAL DISTURBANCES BY A POST STRESS PROVOCATION TEST IN HUMANS, Life sciences, 53(21), 1993, pp. 1583-1589
Eighteen healthy army officers were subjected after prolonged rest to
exhaustive ergometric work for about 15 minutes. Before and afterwards
blood was taken from the cannulated antecubital vein for determinatio
n of free and sulfoconjugated catecholamines, cortisol, glucose, and w
hite blood cell count. One week later, the same procedure was repeated
with the same subjects with the difference that the probands underwen
t about 2.5 hours of difficult mountain climbing and a subsequent rest
of 1.5 hours before ergometry. The most important results were: 1) to
tal and bound fractions of catecholamines showed some significant diff
erences between the first and second ergometry due to the previous mou
ntain climbing stress; 2) serum cortisol did not increase after the fi
rst ergometry but did so significantly after the second ergometry due
to the previous stress; low cortisol is not always indicative of the a
bsence of stress; 3) the absolute number of white blood cells increase
d in both situations, correlated significantly with the severity of th
e stress and the individual increases were more person than situation
specific and; 4) blood glucose remained unaffected in both situations.
We conclude that a previous stress experience can affect a second str
ess response and that such a post stress provocation test can uncover
persistent hormonal alterations. This procedure may be useful for the
evaluation of inaccessible stress situations from subsequent stress me
asures.