Short Report

Is there an association between fibromyalgia and below-normal levels of urinary cortisol?

Silvia Izquierdo–Álvarez¹ , Julia Pilar Bocos–Terraz¹ , Jose Luis Bancalero–Flores¹ , Lenin Pavón–Romero² , Enrique Serrano–Ostariz³ and Cayetano Alegre de Miquel⁴

¹  Department of Biochemistry (Hormonal Section), Hospital Universitario Miguel Servet, Zaragoza, Spain

²  Department of Psychoimmunology, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Dr Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico

³  Department of Physical Activity Medicine, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

⁴  Rheumatology Section, Hospital Vall de Hebrón, Barcelona, Spain

author email corresponding author email

BMC Research Notes 2008, 1:134doi:10.1186/1756-0500-1-134

Published:	22 December 2008

Abstract

Background

Adynamia in fibromyalgia (FM) may be an expression of a functional deficit of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and be associated with below-normal levels of urinary cortisol. Our aim was to demonstrate that urinary cortisol was lower in patients with FM than in healthy subjects.

Findings

We measured urinary cortisol levels for a sample of 47 women aged 29 to 64 years (mean age 53 years), diagnosed with FM 2–3 years previously, and compared the results with those for a control sample of 58 healthy women of a similar age. Samples of 24-hour urine were appropriately collected and levels of urinary cortisol were measured using the fluorescence polarization immunoassay method. The mean cortisol value for the women with FM was 65.40 ± 27.10 μg/L, significantly lower than the mean cortisol level for the control group, at 90.83 ± 38.17 μg/L (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

Our study confirms that women with FM have significantly lower urinary cortisol levels than healthy women.