Association of childhood adversity with hair cortisol level in a sample of Egyptian primary school children

Abstract EN

Background: Childhood adversities have detrimental effects on children’s development with psycho- bio- social consequences throughout life.

Children who are abused, bullied, mistreated or witnessed any form of violence, will react to all these experiences by developing emotional, learning, or behavioral disorders or even deleterious physical health outcome.

How these early life experiences affect physical and mental health, is a point of concern and endless research till now.

The most widely discussed biological basis for these effects is the glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis, where chronic stress evokes persistent hyperactivity of the hypothalamic- pituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis leading to hypercortisoiemia.

Identification of cortisol level in hair is a promising, non- invasive technique for assessment of role of stress and, to fill the methodological void of long- term cortisol assessment.

Aim: To evaluate the association of exposure to early adverse childhood experiences with hair cortisol level in a sample of Egyptian primary schoolchildren Subjects and Methods: This study was carried out on 114 students aged between 8- 10 years, divided into Group A: (55 students) who exposed to one or two adverse experiences, Group B: (56 students) with multiple exposure to more than three adverse experiences, the rest of the students were not exposed (3 students).

The children of the two groups were matched as regards their age, sex, and socioeconomic sums.

Assessment of chronic alteration of hypothalamic- pituitary- adrenal axis was done through measurement of hair cortisol level with modified an immunoassay originally developed for measuring cortisol in saliva.

Results: Hie median hair cortisol level was 33.7 pg.

/mg of hair, IQR (20- 37.5) which is considered high level when compared to normal reference validation ranges from 6.8 to 8.5 pg./mg.

Median hair cortisol level showed non- significant statistical difference between the two studied groups.

Conclusions: Early exposure to adverse life experiences is associated with high hair cortisol level rather than the multiplicity of exposure.