Objective: To investigate the relationship between subjective memory complaints (SMC) and the stress hormone cortisol using diurnal measures in older, cognitively intact subjects.
Methods: This cross-sectional study conducted at a university research center included 64 volunteers (with or without SMC) with a mean age of 78.6 (±6.3) years and diagnosis of cognitively normal based on objective neuropsychological testing. Measures of diurnal salivary cortisol, depressive symptoms, episodic memory performance, level of anxiety, and apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 allele status were obtained.
Results: In multivariate logistic regression analyses with SMC as outcome, averaged postpeak cortisol, the cortisol awakening response, and depressive symptoms were significant predictors, whereas gender, memory performance, anxiety, and APOE-e4 status were not.
Conclusions: Significant associations between SMC and diurnal measures of cortisol in cognitively intact elderly suggest that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction may contribute to early neuropathologic changes in older adults who complain of memory decline undetected on neuropsychological testing.
Keywords: Alzheimer disease; apolipoprotein E; chronic stress; dementia; depression.
Copyright © 2013 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.