Adrenal function links to early postnatal growth and blood pressure at age 6 in children born extremely preterm
Watterberg et al.
The finding, in our words
In extremely preterm-born children, salivary cortisol and DHEA at age 6 correlated inversely with early postnatal growth measures and positively with systolic blood pressure, and DHEA was higher than in term-born children, suggesting perinatal programming of cardiometabolic risk.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This study used home self-collected saliva samples to successfully monitor cytokines and cortisol in mothers and infants, finding that a community singing intervention significantly reduced salivary interleukin-6 levels in mothers with postnatal depression.
Kirkpatrick et al., Brain, behavior, and immunity (paywalled) · source ↗
Higher lifetime trauma exposure in adolescent mothers was associated with higher evening salivary cortisol, and maternal trauma during pregnancy was associated with higher bedtime cortisol in infants, suggesting that self-collected saliva can capture diurnal cortisol patterns relevant to trauma research and decentralised sampling.
Wiley et al., American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council (paywalled) · source ↗
Among children of parents with bipolar disorder, saliva samples collected at home over two days showed that improvements in family organisation during a six-month prevention programme were associated with adaptive changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, including elevated cortisol awakening response and steeper diurnal slope. These results indicate that decentralised saliva collection can capture clinically meaningful neuroendocrine responses to psychosocial interventions in at-risk paediatric populations.
Ping et al., Psychoneuroendocrinology (paywalled) · source ↗
A validated LC-MS/MS assay successfully measured 13 steroid hormones and two synthetic steroids in saliva, requiring only 50 microlitres, or down to 2 to 5 microlitres for nine analytes. This shows saliva's viability for non-invasive, patient-centric microsampling and decentralised monitoring in paediatric, neonatal and adult populations.
Dahl et al., Scandinavian journal of clinical and laboratory investigation (paywalled) · source ↗
Maltreated adolescents exhibited persistently flattened cortisol diurnal rhythms when saliva was collected at home, showing that decentralised, patient-centric microsampling across laboratory, home, and school settings can reveal neurobiological adaptations to chronic stress. This supports saliva self-collection as a feasible method for monitoring HPA axis dysfunction in vulnerable youth.
Shirtcliff et al., Biological psychology (paywalled) · source ↗