Bad hair link to bad heart

Define "bad hair" as hair with cortisol and yes, there is a link to heart attacks.

Research from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario has revealed that a little bit of hair is all that is needed to test for cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a hormone that is secreted when you have a lot of stress. People who have had heart attacks had a significantly high level of cortisol in the three months before their attack.

How stressed are you? It appears a doctor can run a stress test by looking for cortisol in the hair rather then checking your blood, saliva or urine. The cortisol that is in hair is stable for about a six month period. The cortisol in urine, saliva or blood shows the secretion over the last few hours or days. It does not show an on-going stress level.

If a six centimetre piece of hair is tested one centimetre at a time it will give a six month record of stress. This is a method of determining high risk stress levels in a person as a factor for heart attack.

One thought is that group health insurance plans might be interested in this study as well. It is not uncommon to see an employee who feels stressed during their job to apply for stress leave. It is a judgement call by the attending doctor on whether or not the stress leave is granted and for how long. Here is a method of determining the risk for that particular employee that is verifiable in the laboratory. This would certainly help to reduce the uncertainty of whether or not the employee does need a stress leave or is just feeling unhappy in their work.

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