Mildly high cortisol tied to deaths in benign adrenal tumor patients
Patients with mildly elevated cortisol had a mortality hazard ratio of 1.57 versus those with suppressed cortisol; accounting for cancer history weakened the link.
Paper by Luise Bellach, Dorota Sluková, Dorothea Kalender et al.
Limit: Adjusting for cancer history weakened the link between mildly elevated cortisol and mortality
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers studied 670 adults with adrenal adenomas, benign tumors of the adrenal glands, in a retrospective observational cohort study. Patients underwent testing at Vienna General Hospital between 2000 and 2022. Researchers grouped them by levels of cortisol, a hormone, after a suppression test. Mortality follow-up data spanned more than 20 years.
Patients with mildly elevated cortisol had the highest mortality. Compared with patients whose cortisol was suppressed, their mortality hazard ratio—a measure of relative risk over time—was 1.57 after adjustment for age, sex, body mass index and cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors. The association weakened after researchers also accounted for cancer history. The mildly elevated group also had more cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, a condition that weakens bones, than the suppressed group.
Why it matters
Heart disease and osteoporosis affect health in later life. The authors called for prospective studies to clarify the potential role of cortisol-specific treatment in this patient group.
Caveats
This observational study could not establish that cortisol caused higher mortality or that cortisol-specific treatment would help. Its findings concern adults with adrenal adenomas assessed at one hospital.
The paper
Higher mortality in patients with milder autonomous cortisol secretion
Luise Bellach, Dorota Sluková, Dorothea Kalender et al.
Frontiers in Endocrinology, Oct 30, 2026, CC BY, Accepted, not yet published
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