%0 Journal Article
%T Diurnal cortisol and mental well-being in middle and older age: evidence from four cohort studies
%A Catharine Gale
%A Chris Power
%A Cyrus Cooper
%A Diana Kuh
%A Mai Stafford
%A Marie-Claude Geoffroy
%A Michael P Gardner
%A Rachel Cooper
%A Yoav Ben-Shlomo
%J -
%D 2017
%R 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016085
%X Objectives We conducted an individual participant meta-analysis to test the hypothesis that cortisol patterns indicative of dysregulated hypothalamic¨Cpituitary¨Cadrenal axis functioning would be prospectively associated with poorer well-being at follow-up.

Setting Four large UK-based cohort studies.

Participants Those providing valid salivary or serum cortisol samples (n=7515 for morning cortisol; n=1612 for cortisol awakening response) at baseline (age 44¨C82) and well-being data on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale at follow-up (0¨C8 years) were included.

Results Well-being was not associated with morning cortisol, diurnal slope or awakening response though a borderline association with evening cortisol was found. Adjusting for sex and follow-up time, each 1 SD increase in evening cortisol was associated with a £¿0.47 (95% CI £¿1.00 to 0.05) point lower well-being. This was attenuated by adjustment for body mass index, smoking and socioeconomic position. Between-study heterogeneity was low.

Conclusions This study does not support the hypothesis that diurnal cortisol is prospectively associated with well-being up to 8 years later. However, replication in prospective studies with cortisol samples over multiple days is required
%U https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/10/e016085