Original ArticlesTwenty-Four Hour Cortisol Release Profiles in Patients With Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease Compared to Normal Controls: Ultradian Secretory Pulsatility and Diurnal Variation
Section snippets
Protocol
Twenty-four hour pulsatile cortisol secretion was evaluated quantitatively in a) 12 patients with AD (4 male, 8 female patients; mean age: 63 ± 8.4 years; mean duration of illness: 4.3 ± 2.1 years), b) 12 patients with PD (10 male, 2 female patients; mean age: 61 ± 8.1 years; mean duration of illness: 12 ± 6.5 years), and 10 physically and mentally healthy controls (NV = normal volunteers; 7 male, 3 female; mean age: 68 ± 8.4 years). Severity of a possible concurrent depression in patients was
Results
Results are summarized in Table 1. Cortisol half-life, number of secretory bursts in 24 h, and the mean intersecretory pulse interval were almost identical among the three groups. Mass of cortisol secreted per burst was almost double in patients with AD compared to NV. However, this finding failed to reach statistical significance (p < 0.1), whereas in PD patients this mass was significantly greater than in NV. These differences were not related to amplitude of cortisol secretory bursts, which
Discussion
The results of the present study can be summarized as follows: patients with AD and PD secret significantly more cortisol in 24 h than NV. This difference is related to an elevated pulsatile cortisol production rate in both disease groups. Patients with AD and PD have higher masses of cortisol secreted per burst, but similar cortisol half-lives, secretory pulse frequencies or amplitudes as NV. Contrasting these similarities between AD and PD patients compared to NV, the relative diurnal
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