Time course of cortisol loss in hair segments under immersion in hot water

Hair cortisol is supposed to be a good biomarker of chronic stress. Major loss of hair cortisol in long-term exposure to environmental factors affected strongly its proper assessment of chronic stress in human. However, there was no research on time course of hair cortisol loss during the long-term exposure. Hair samples with longer than 1 cm in the posterior vertex region were cut as close as possible to the scalp. The 1-cm hair samples were...