Predicting hair cortisol levels with hair pigmentation genes: a possible hair pigmentation bias.

ABSTRACT: Cortisol concentrations in hair are used to create hormone profiles spanning months. This method allows assessment of chronic cortisol exposure, but might be biased by hair pigmentation: dark hair was previously related to higher concentrations. It is unclear whether this association arises from local effects, such as increased hormone extractability, or whether the association represents systemic differences arising from population stratification. We tested the hypothesis that hair pigmentation gene variants are associated with varying cortisol levels independent of genetic ancestry. Hormone concentrations and genotype were measured in 1674 children from the Generation R cohort at age 6. We computed a polygenic score of hair color based on 9 single nucleotide polymorphisms. This score was

SUBMITTER: Neumann A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5561185 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature