Correlations between serum cortisol and body mass index at old patients under balnear treatment

Introduction. Glucocorticoids provide a significant resource of scientific progress in medical research, being studied in terms of molecules, genetics, physiopathology at the level of the human body, starting from animal models, with valuable recent discoveries regarding their implications in the human psychic level, stress reaction and the search of new possible therapeutic effects unknown until now. Our work are illustrated the correlations between serum cortisol and body mass index - BMI at old patients under balneal treatment with natural factors from Techirghiol lake. Material and methods. The study monitored 52 patients admitted in Balneal and Recovery Sanatorium of Techirghiol for complex balneal treatment, using mud baths (cold or warm), and physical treatments. The patients were grouped in two batches: batch of cold baths with mud- CMB (15 patients, 28.8%, 6 men and 9 women) and batch of warm baths with mud-WMB (37 patients, 71.2%, 19 man and 18 women). The following issues were statistically analysed: BMI, respectively serum cortisol value variation for each batch studied, both at the time of admission and at the time of discharge; comparative analysis between the two moments for each batch; and the comparative analysis between the two study batches at the time of admission, respectively discharge and the BMI value variation in statistical relation with the serum cortisol values for each batch studies at the time of admission and at the time of discharge. Results. From statistical analysis of the correlation between the body mass index (BMI) of patients included in research in the CMB batch at admission and discharge according to the variations of the serum cortisol level , the two variables (Serum cortisol / BMI) both at admission and discharge are not correlated (r = -0.366; p = 0.180 > α = 0.05; r = -0.035; p = 0.901 > α = 0.05). Also, from statistical analysis of the correlation between the body mass index (BMI) of patients included in research in the WMB batch at admission and discharge according to the variations of the serum cortisol level , the two variables (Serum cortisol / BMI) are correlated at admission (r = -0.406; p = 0.013 > α = 0.05), but are not correlated at discharge (r = 0.200; p = 0.236 > α = 0.05). Conclusions. Previous studies have shown that high levels of adiposity can increase the cortisol stress response. While overweight and obese men showed an increased cortisol response upon each food intake, they can be more susceptible to develop stress associated disorders.