title: Hemostatic responses to mental stress during the menstrual cycle.
abstract: To study the effect of sex hormones on the hemostatic responses to stress, blood samples were collected before, during, and after 20 min of mental stress from 9 healthy, non-smoking female volunteers, examined in the follicular and luteal phase. Mental stress caused significant increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and plasma catecholamines. In addition, analysis of variance indicated significant changes of leukocyte count, hematocrit, fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor antigen, t-PA activity and antigen in response to the stress test. However, in contrast to a male group previously investigated, there were no significant changes in factor VII coagulant activity in either menstrual phase. Overall the responses were more pronounced in the luteal as compared to the follicular phase. The findings support the concept that both gender and physiological variations in female sex hormones may modulate hemostatic responses to psychosocial stress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology, University of Göteborg, Ostra Hospital, Sweden.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jern
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Manhem
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eriksson
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tengborn
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Risberg
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jern
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001779:Blood Coagulation Factors / Q000032:analysis*; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004837:Epinephrine / Q000097:blood; D004958:Estradiol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006400:Hematocrit; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006487:Hemostasis; D006801:Humans; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D008433:Mathematics; D008597:Menstrual Cycle / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000097:blood; D015849:Plasminogen Inactivators / Q000097:blood; D010976:Platelet Count; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors; D010959:Tissue Plasminogen Activator / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D001779:Blood Coagulation Factors; D015849:Plasminogen Inactivators; D004958:Estradiol; D010959:Tissue Plasminogen Activator; D009638:Norepinephrine; D004837:Epinephrine