Sweat-inducing physiological challenges do not result in acute changes in hair cortisol concentrations
Abstract
Hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) are assumed to provide a stable, integrative marker of long-term systemic cortisol secretion. However, contrary to this assumption, some recent observations have raised the possibility that HCC may be subject to acute influences, potentially related to cortisol incorporation from sweat. Here, we provide a first detailed in vivo investigation of this possibility comprising two independent experimental studies: study I (N=42) used a treadmill challenge to induce sweating together with systemic cortisol reactivity while in study II (N=52) a sauna bathing challenge induced sweating without systemic cortisol changes. In both studies, repeated assessments of HCC, salivary cortisol, cortisol in sweat and individuals' sweating rate (single assessment) were conducted on the experimental day and at a next-day follow-up. Results across the two studies consistently revealed that HCC were not altered by the acute interventions. Further, HCC were found to be unrelated to acute salivary cortisol reactivity, sweat cortisol levels, sweating rate or the time of examination. In line with previous data, cortisol levels in sweat were strongly related to total salivary cortisol output across the examined periods. The present results oppose recent case report data by showing that single sweat-inducing interventions do not result in acute changes in HCC. Our data also tentatively speak against the notion that cortisol in sweat may be a dominant source of HCC. Further, our findings also indicate that HCC are not subject to diurnal variation. This research provides further support for hair cortisol analysis as a marker of integrated long-term systemic cortisol secretion.
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Large-scale observational evidence and experimental work do not support the idea that higher hair cortisol levels from July to October reflected the impact of summer season or sunlight exposure.
“In sum, large-scale observational evidence and experimental work do not support the idea that higher hair cortisol levels from July to October reflected the impact of summer season or sunlight exposure.”
From Chronic Stress, Hair Cortisol and Depression: A Prospective and Longitudinal Study of Medical Internship (2018) · cites this paper as Grass et al., 2015
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“A further potential advantage of HCC in comparison to other collection methods is that situational factors do not result in acute changes of cortisol concentration such as induced by hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activity through acute stressors (Grass et al., 2015; Skoluda et al., 2017).”
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King, M. A., Brown, S. D., Barnes, K. A., Chavez, P. J. D. D., & Baker, L. B. (2023) · European Journal of Applied Physiology · doi:10.1007/s00421-023-05187-3 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Hair cortisol concentration in a population without hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis disorders
Cieszyński, Ł., Jendrzejewski, J., Wiśniewski, P., Owczarzak, A., & Sworczak, K. (2018) · Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine · doi:10.17219/acem/90038 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Hinnouho, G., Bernstein, R. M., Barffour, M. A., Arnold, C. D., Wessells, K. R., Ratsavong, K., Bounheuang, B., Kounnavong, S., & Hess, S. Y. (2018) · Nutrients · doi:10.3390/nu11010047 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Furthermore, it has been reported that hair cortisol is stable over time [14], has a high overall validity and test-retest reliability [15] and is not found to be influenced by acute stress [16].”
BackgroundFlexible Electrochemical Biosensor for Non-Invasive, on-Site Cortisol Monitoring in Sweat and Saliva
Fande, S., Sriram, D., & Goel, S. (2026) · ACS Measurement Science Au · doi:10.1021/acsmeasuresciau.5c00153 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Seasonal variation in hair cortisol concentration: A systematic review
Feneberg, A. C., Fischer, S., & Skoluda, N. (2025) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2025.101199 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“However, there is inconclusive evidence regarding the role of scalp sweat on HCC (Abdulateef, 2021; Grass et al., 2015; Russell et al., 2014).”
Krumbholz, A., Schönfelder, M., Hofmann, H., & Thieme, D. (2018) · Forensic Science International · doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.01.030 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Abdulateef, D. S. (2021) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-02223-0 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Characterization of hair cortisol concentration pre-conception and during pregnancy
Juvinao-Quintero, D. L., Künzel, R. G., Larrabure-Torrealva, G. T., Duncan, L. E., Kirschbaum, C., Sánchez, S. E., & Gelaye, B. (2023) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2024.107089 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Hair Cortisol and Self-Injurious Behavior Among Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Courtemanche, A. B., Black, W. R., & Meyer, J. S. (2021) · American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-126.2.158 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Knowles, L. M., Skeath, P. R., Jia, M., Najafi, B., Thayer, J. F., & STERNBERG, E. M. (2015) · Gerontology · doi:10.1159/000441494 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Chatzi, G., Chandola, T., Shlomo, N., Cernat, A., & Hannemann, T. (2024) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2024.107116 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…to estimate the season of collection as temperature, humidity, and transpiration can have an effect on hair cortisol concentrations (Boesch et al., 2015; Grass et al., 2015; Staufenbiel et al., 2015); Season variable was produced from the nurse visit month date and was cat-egorised as following: 1.”
BackgroundState of the art Overview wearable microfluidic noninvasive biomarker sensors for sweat analysis
Liu, C., Sun, X., Wang, Q., Wang, Q., Wang, S., & Zhang, S. (2025) · Microchemical Journal · doi:10.1016/j.microc.2025.112847 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Hair cortisol concentrations in New Zealand white rabbits subjected to surgery
Peric, T., Comin, A., Corazzin, M., Montillo, M., Canavese, F., Stebel, M., & Prandi, A. (2018) · Animal Welfare · doi:10.7120/09627286.27.1.013 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Song, X., Cui, W., Peng, Z., Zhao, L., Yu, X., Li, T., Cui, L., & Ma, X. (2019) · Journal of International Medical Research · doi:10.1177/0300060519889431 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Jaramillo, I., Bergunde, L., Müller-Stark, C., Karl, M., Weise, V., Kirschbaum, C., Garthus‐Niegel, S., & Steudte‐Schmiedgen, S. (2025) · BMC Pediatrics · doi:10.1186/s12887-025-05528-5 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“…traditional cortisol methods in saliva, blood, or urine assess rather the short-term hormone secretion, which is heavily influenced by factors like ultradian and circadian rhythms or acute stress and are thought to offer limited insight into overall long-term systemic cortisol exposure [36–38].”
A Method for Assessing Week-Long Cortisol Output Using a Continuously Worn Sweat Patch
Meyer, J. S., Blain, J. P., & Kalmakis, K. A. (2026) · Methods and Protocols · doi:10.3390/mps9010013 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Moreover, Grass and coworkers [15] found high correlations between sweat CORT and salivary CORT AUC in participants subjected to either treadmill-or sauna-induced sweat production.”
Hair testosterone and cortisol interactively predict problematic pornography use in a male sample
Burkardt, T. M., Stark, R. M., Tobias Stalder, A., Wolf, O. T., Klucken, T., Brand, M., & Müller, S. M. (2026) · Journal of Behavioral Addictions · doi:10.1556/2006.2025.00489 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
HAIR CORTISOL AS AN ANALYTICAL MEASURE OF CHRONIC STRESS
Paza, D. L. S., Pierozan, G. C., Furyama, G. Y., & Stefanello, J. M. F. (2017) · Psicologia Saúde & Doenças · doi:10.15309/17psd180312 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome: A Phenotype of Mild Long-Term Hypercortisolism?
Wester, V. L., & van Rossum, E. F. C. (2016) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-45950-9_15 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Schillings, C., Schultchen, D., Küchler, A., Mack, M., Baumeister, H., & Pollatos, O. (2026) · BMC Psychology · doi:10.1186/s40359-026-04631-1 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“There is profound evidence that identified hair cortisol is an appropriate psychobiological biomarker to assess chronic stress, reflecting stress exposure over weeks or months, and less influenced by acute stressors or circadian rhythms [50–53].”
Liquid chromatography mass spectrometry of segmented hair cortisol – A Bayesian retrospective window
Šmak, P., Kotouček, R., Kostolanská, K., Bartečková, E., Juřica, J., Ustohal, L., Hořínková, J., Linhartová, P., Peš, O., Čuta, M., et al. (2025) · Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis · doi:10.1016/j.jpba.2025.117127
Bias in hair cortisol measures for psychological stress: Self vs. professional collection
Gatny, H., Axinn, W. G., Ghimire, D. J., West, B. T., Hermosilla, S., Pradhan, S. M., Dixit, S., & Chaudary, I. (2026) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2026.107775
Xie, H., Davidson, L., Hamdan, R., Shih, C.-H., Gao, W., Wall, J. T., McCullumsmith, R. E., & Wang, X. (2026) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/s41398-026-03901-1
“HCC has been increasingly used to study cortisol levels because cortisol that is accumulated in hair is less sensitive to situational and circadian fl uctuations [33] and consequently has advantages over single-time point cortisol measure from blood, saliva, or urine [34].”
Cibulcova, V., Elavsky, S., Cipryan, L., Jackowska, M., Dostal, T., Jiřík, V., Jandačka, D., & Jandackova, V. K. (2026) · Stress · doi:10.1080/10253890.2026.2721526
Human Sweat Cortisol Versus Blood and Saliva: Quantitative Interpretation
Albanese, L. (2026) · Methods and Protocols · doi:10.3390/mps9060154
- Authors
- Grass, J., Kirschbaum, C., Miller, R., Gao, W., Steudte-Schmiedgen, S., & Stalder, T.
- Affiliations
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-03
- Volume
- 53
- Pages
- 108-116
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1968308487
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 6.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Adrenal Hormones and Disorders
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Keywords
- hair cortisol, salivary cortisol, sweating, treadmill exercise, sauna bathing, diurnal variation, biomarker validity
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Circadian Rhythm, Female, Hair, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Saliva, Stress, Physiological, Sweat, Sweating, Steam Bath, Young Adult
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