Psychological, cardiovascular, and metabolic correlates of individual differences in cortisol stress recovery in young men

The relationship of free salivary cortisol stress recovery and basal cortis ol with psychological, cardiovascular and metabolic factors was investigate d in 82 healthy young men. Blood pressure, heart ratel cortisol and mood we re assessed during a single laboratory session involving mental arithmetic and speech tasks, and lipid profiles were analysed from a fasting blood sam ple. Participants were divided into high (n=31) and low (n=51) cortisol str ess recovery groups on the basis of the magnitude of changes between the pe ak cortisol responses to tasks and the lowest levels recorded at the end of a 30 min post-stress rest period. The high recovery group showed consisten t increases in cortisol following each of the tasks, while the low recovery group showed little change across the session. Cortisol levels in the two groups did not differ at the end of the pest-stress recovery period. The gr oups were indistinguishable in age, body mass index, smoking and alcohol co nsumption, and did not differ in psychological characteristics including an xiety, depression and perceived social support. However, the high stress re covery group had elevated low density lipoprotein cholesterol and total cho lesterol/high density lipoprotein ratios, suggesting raised cardiovascular disease risk. The high stress recovery group also reported greater psycholo gical activation during tasks, and greater recent minor life stress, than d id the low recovery group. There was no association between rate of cortiso l recovery and cardiovascular responses to tasks. But resting cortisol was related to blood pressure stress reactivity, suggesting that cortisol playe d a permissive role in augmenting sympathetically-driven cardiovascular res ponses. The results suggest that the rate of cortisol stress recovery is as sociated with variations in metabolic risk, and with differences in psychol ogical state but not trait characteristics. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.