Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well today. I wanted to bring you some more bipolar news that I have come across on the internet on PsychCentral's website. Apparently there is a link between elevated AND decreased cortisol levels and the poor quality of life of bipolar patients according to a Swedish study. Below are excerpts from the article as well as a link to the source page.
"New research suggests depression is almost twice as common, and poor quality of life almost five times as common, in people with bipolar disorder who have elevated or low levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood. Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, discuss this finding in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
“In bipolar depression the stress system is often activated, which means that the affected individuals have elevated cortisol levels in the blood,” said Martin Maripuu, a Ph.D. student and physician at the psychiatric clinic, Östersund Hospital. “We have now been able to show that both over- and underactivity in the stress system, with corresponding elevated or reduced cortisol levels, can impair mental health in terms of depression and poor quality of life in these patients.”
As many of us know, bipolar disorder is a lifelong disease that causes recurrent episodes of both mania and depression. Stress is a known trigger for these episodes, and depression and mania also adds to the accumulated stress load. One of the body’s main stress systems is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which regulates cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that helps us cope with various stressful situations, such as pain, illness and stress at work. Stress causes overactivity in the stress system, resulting in elevated levels of cortisol. If the stress continues in the long-term, it is believed to cause an underactivity in the stress system, which results in low cortisol levels. Previous studies have shown that the stress system is often overactive in patients with bipolar depression."
"Prevalence of low quality of life was six times more common in the group with low cortisol levels and nearly five times more common among those with high cortisol levels, compared with those who exhibited normal activity in the stress system.
The study also shows that people who had low cortisol levels, on average, have had their disease longer than those with high cortisol levels, which could suggest that chronic stress in bipolar disorder can lead to an “exhaustion” of the stress system with reduced cortisol levels as a result. The researchers also believe that the low cortisol levels, once developed, can contribute to a more chronic, manifested state of the disorder."
The researchers think these results are important because they think that in the future they could contribute to a more personally tailored medical treatment of bipolar disorder. "The results may also ultimately lead to the development of new drugs that work by normalizing the stress system and cortisol levels,” said Maripuu.
Source
Let's hope the devlopment of new treatments is sooner rather than later. Have a great Thursday everyone!
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