Perceived academic stress, hair and saliva cortisol concentrations, and their relationship with anthropometric measures associated with obesity in first-year medical students

Cortisol plays an important role between stress, weight gain, and the development of obesity. Therefore, we investigated the association between stress, eating behavior, cortisol, and anthropometric measures related to obesity in a sample of medical students. We determined cortisol concentrations by ELISA and related it to self-reported stress, eating behavior, and anthropometric measurements throughout the academic period. We report an increase in hair cortisol, higher self-reported stress scores, and BMI mainly in females. Finally, we found evidence of positive associations between capillary cortisol and BMI. Also, eating behavior is affected by perceived stress mainly in females. In this database, we provide weight variables, BMI, psychometric tests, and hormonal determinations. You can see two sheets in the Excel file. Sheet 1 includes the raw data and sheet 2 includes a description of each variable, as well as the bibliography (article or book) where each survey or protocol was obtained. In addition, the data specify the units of the hormonal variables, as well as the units of the anthropometric variables. If you have questions about the interpretation of psychometric test scores, you can contact our team for further details.