Sex-specific association between the cortisol awakening response and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in healthy individuals

Table 2 HPA axis measures by sex

	Men N = 80	Women N = 103	p
Awakening cortisol (T1), nmol/L	16.0 (11.7)	17.2 (9.0)	0.256
30-min post-awakening cortisol (T2), nmol/L	25.0 (12.6)	24.6 (14.1)	0.499
60-min post-awakening cortisol (T3), nmol/L	19.9 (12.5)	21.3 (12.6)	0.559
10 a.m. cortisol (T4), nmol/L	13.4 (12.2)	12.1 (8.3)	0.780
11 p.m. cortisol (T5), nmol/L	3.7 (5.6)	3.1 (2.3)	0.965
10 a.m. post-dexamethasone cortisol (T6), nmol/L	7.7 (5.6)	3.1 (2.3)	0.229
CAR^†	35.8 (59.8)	26.0 (61.6)	0.295
Diurnal cortisol slope^‡	− 0.95 (0.69)	− 1.08 (0.71)	0.393
DSTR^§	4.7 (7.1)	10.3 (20.4)	0.086

Abbreviations: CAR cortisol awakening response, DSTR dexamethasone suppression test ratio
All variables presented in mean (SD). For cortisol concentrations (T1-T6), diurnal cortisol slope and DSTR, raw data are shown. P values for these HPA axis measures are generated with transformed cortisol values (in the transformation of the DSTR, we calculated the ratio with untransformed cortisol values and performed the power transformation after calculating the ratio)
^†CAR was calculated with transformed cortisol values
^‡Diurnal cortisol slope was calculated using 10 a.m. and 11 p.m. samples
^§DSTR = 10 a.m. cortisol/10 a.m. post-dexamethasone cortisol

ISSN: 2042-6410