Question for SWALE, salivary hormones

[robertin75]

Hi SWALE:

Do you recommend measuring hormone levels in saliva?

Maybe cortisol?

Thanks for your help,
Roberto

 

[androjello]

I had the same question as well. I just saw a new doc who has supplied me with basically a "24 hr male homone panel." Basically I recored my hormonal levels every 4 hours through saliva for a day. Is there any advantage to this method over just a blood test?

 

[robertin75]

I read that cortisol in saliva is a good indicator of your adrenal glands status, since saliva cortisol is in the free form, whereas most blood cortisol levels can be bound to protein (albumin, cortisol binding globulin mainly), and therefore inactive to your body tissues.

Estrogens can also increase CBG (cortisol binding globulin) and will leave less free cortisol for your body to use.

About 95% of cortisol is bound to proteins whereas about 5% is free to be used by your tissues.

I don't know how accurate would be to measure other hormones like estrogens and testosterone in saliva,though. My guess is that blood is better than saliva for these hormones.

Roberto

 

[robertin75]

bump

 

[SWALE]

Salivary hormone testing is, in a word, garbage.

The only assay where saliva CAN (and I repeat CAN) be a suitable matrix is cortisol. Even then, results vary so widely as to be virtually unpredictable.