Hi Paul, is the method described in this JOVE paper (doi: 10.3791/50882) useful? There's a useful video presentation on the procedure at the website of the journal http://www.jove.com/video/50882/extraction-and-analysis-of-cortisol-from-human-and-monkey-hair

Paul, I'm the first author on the aforementioned JoVE paper and the head of the lab that developed the method described therein. You are correct that hair CORT analysis is not inexpensive (our current fee is $30 per sample assayed in duplicate), but this is because the way we do it is quite labor intensive. Our early pilot data suggested that the most valid results are obtained when samples are washed, dried, and then ground to a powder prior to CORT extraction in methanol, but not all labs follow this methodology. For large scale screening in epidemiology studies, it might be satisfactory to quickly mince the sample into small pieces and then go right to the extraction step. Of course you still have the cost of the assay, which might be ELISA (our standard method),  RIA, or LC-MS, as well as methanol, extraction tubes, and any other miscellaneous lab items. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Best regards,

Jerry Meyer

Paul, I forgot to mention that another possibility that is under development is to use fingernail clippings instead of hair. Nails provide a different timeline than hair but have some advantages, e.g., in cases where hair is cut very short, lacking altogether, or otherwise unavailable from participants. We are in the process of validating a fingernail procedure in my lab, and there are already a couple of papers out from other groups.

Jerry 

Hi Paul, you can try with:

http://salimetricseurope.blogspot.com.es/p/hair-cortisol.html

Good luck!

Hello all,

I recognize this is an old thread and so may not still be active, but I am also looking for a lab that can conduct cortisol assay on hair samples (NHP). Internet searches have not turned up many options. Any recommendations would be appreciated! 

Thanks!

-Reggie

I notice this is quite an old thread but has there been any recent updates in term of the process of measuring hair cortisol concentration?

I am currently having to provide some costings in a research proposal.

Thanks.

Hi Matthew,

I don't know what you consider "inexpensive", but my lab does provide this service for other investigators. Our current fee is $35 per hair sample, which covers all supplies and labor costs of hair processing and cortisol assay. If you want more information, feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].

Jerry

Thanks, everyone.  The thread is still running and interest is still there - so keep it rolling.  Thank you Jerry for the info, but this is still well beyond our meagre research budgets.  Paul

Hi Paul, I understand the issue, but the way that we process hair samples is very time consuming and labor intensive. That's what accounts for a major portion of the cost. Jerry

Hi All

I run a private functional pathology laboratory and provide hormone measurements from saliva and hair mainly for researchers and institutions as well as health professionals. I am a former academic with numerous international publications in the area of hormone action. We have performed in excess of 6000 hair samples for researchers across the globe on cortisol, DHEA, and testosterone. I agree with Jerrold Meyer that the testing is labor intensive and therefore more expensive than processing saliva. Our current pricing is at AU$30 in duplicate for cortisol and AU$70 for all 3 hormones. Drop me a line at [email protected] if interested to talk further as we specialise in exactly what you are wanting.

Currently, our research lab performs a a very rigorous protocol for hair cortisol determination- we start with a isopropanol wash, dry hair under N2 prior to weighing, do a triplicate extraction (methanol overnight, acetone, methanol overnight) followed up by drying under N2 and quadruplicate measurement with ELISA- for $40/sample. We collaborate with 2 research groups, in the US and Ecuador, and published in 2017 in Austin Biochemistry; here is the link:

http://austinpublishinggroup.com/biochemistry/download.php?file=fulltext/biochemistry-v2-id1007.pdf

I will be very happy to collaborate. Please send me an e-mail at [email protected]

My lab routinely processes hair cortisol for outside investigators. We have processed more than 15,000 samples over the past 7-8 years in everything from humans to endangered species from international locations. We participate in a Salimetrics quality control program for their kit and are named a Center of Excellence. We recently began a international quality control program in which Dr. Meyer and many others participated recently. The cost per sample processed by EIA is $42 which as Jerry indicts is related to the labor intensive nature of this procedures. Samples are run in duplicate and there is no charge for reruns when a sample CV exceeds 10% at which point we rerun in triplicate and report the medial result when there is adequate sample mass. On larger sample sets >1000 we can reduce the price somewhat. One aspect of our approach is the ability to assay somewhat smaller samples of 5 mg rather than the original 50 mg as specified in the Meyer protocol. We offer a 45 min video chat to answer questions and ensure that samples are collected in the best possible manner to ensure reliable results. You can either contact me directly [email protected] or my lab [email protected] fro further information. Best,

mark

Thank you, Mark.

Of note for a large epi study we would be able to reduce the costs from our standard charges of 42.50 to about 32/sample.

Researchers reading this thread should know that my Hormone Assay Core laboratory offers processing and analysis of fingernail as well as hair samples. Depending on the study population, sometimes hair is difficult to obtain or is not available at all (e.g., men who have very short hair, shave their head, or are bald; some newborn infants; or individuals who are unwilling to provide a hair sample for cultural, religious, or other reasons). As with hair, we provide collaborators with recommended methods of nail collection and storage. We currently charge the same fee ($35 per sample) for either nail or hair samples. However, we are happy to discuss a "volume discount" for studies that involve very large numbers of samples. Finally, we offer analyses of a several additional hormones in hair and/or nails, including DHEA, testosterone, and progesterone. Please contact me at [email protected] for more information.

I am currently doing a study where we are collecting hair for chronic cortisol level (in addition to blood and saliva). However, we are finding we are unable to take scalp hair from some males due to current hair styles. Jerrold you mention finger nails which I have thought of as a way to get around this problem. However, my question to you surrounds the comparability for statistical analysis of hair to nails with respect to rate of growth and such. How much (length) of finger nails would be required, specific fingers/thumb, etc.? Is there any literature out there that addresses these issues? Thank you.

Could you perhaps use nails or pubic hair from all participants.

Salivary ELISA kit that you can obtain 96 wells to measure easily and precisely. Each kit depends on the country is starting from $ 350 and above.

New paper here that might be of interest to everyone on this thread.

Article Hair cortisol analysis: An update on methodological consider...

Excellent paper, Paul. One concept clearly noted in it but probably not emphasized enough is the need to control for race in all HCC studies. In a recently completed study in our laboratory (N=300), the difference between EA's and AA's children was about 2.75 fold (higher in AA).

Here is an update on procedures and pricing for hair/nail cortisol in our lab:

Currently, we do four extractions followed by a quadruplicate measurement using ELISA; thus, the cost breaks down as follows:

-a full cortisol ELISA plate fits 20 samples along with standards and controls; at our basic price for that is $30/sample*20 samples=$600 per plate;

-five through eight samples, $300 total:1/2 plate fits 8 samples with standards;

-three or four samples $200 total: 1/3 plate fits 4 samples with standards;

-one or two samples, $150 total: 1/4 plate fits only 2 samples with standards.

For collaborators and/ large sets of samples, we are happy to offer discounts. Please send all requests to kestutis dot bendinskas at oswego dot edu. Thank you.

Hi All

My lab routinely analyses hair and salivary hormones for university researchers. Our numbers are in the10's of thousands and we handle single orders from a few hair samples to our largest single hair order of 2800 over two batches. We have also just finished our largest single order of saliva totalling over 4000 samples. We are a Salimetrics Centre of Excellence lab, and participate in their QC program. We measure most of the Salimetrics Kit analytes in saliva and our measures of cortisol, Testosterone and DHEA from single hair samples have been published by our clients. Costs for hair cortisol is Australian $45 per sample assayed in duplicate and less for large volumes. Multiple hormones in hair is $65 for 2 or $85 for 3 hormones. Please contact me at [email protected] for further details and enquiries.

Hello all, this is an old thread, but thought I would share for some info for those who have find it helpful like I have. Looks like a new technique for automated hair cortisol measurement has been developed recently. Not sure if anyone is offering analysis services using it yet, but thought I would point it out. Here's a link to the ResearchGate page for the article: Article Hair Cortisol Measurement by an Automated Method

Article What’s in a whisker? High-throughput analysis of twenty-eigh...

Hey all, my apologies for posting on an old thread. I am pleased to share our latest J of Chrom B methods paper with you. We developed a high-throughput assay to quantify 28 steroids from keratin (single whiskers sampled from seals in this case). The manuscript describes an accurate quantification method for multiple steroids, measured in a single chromatography step which reduces the cost and time associated with the analyses. The sample extraction also requires very limited specialized equipment.

I trust that the information would be of value to this community.

Hello,

I am hoping to start collecting hair samples in my lab to measure cortisol as a measure of chronic stress in humans. I know this thread is a bit dated, but I am wondering if anyone is offering analysis services of hair cortisol. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have any suggestions, thanks!

http://www.ap-med.co.jp/news/20170110_3.html

Hi Stephanie-san,

Although in Japanese only, it seems that the company may provide such service you hope.

Hi Stephanie

we at Salpath offer hair cortisol analysis as well as multiple hormone analysis from the same hair samples.

We are based in Sydney and have performed many analysis for university academics and results from our lab have been published in international journals.

We have licence for international samples and can turn around results in 2 weeks.

I can be contacted directly at [email protected] for very competitive pricing and further information.

Regards

Dr Sinan Ali

Salpath

Is cortisol level by hair analysis used in clinics? I see valuable literature papers but have not found anything relating this to clinical testing.

Hi Fariba

There are some labs using hair cortisol in clinical settings. Each lab must have a set of normal ranges set from thousands of assays they have conducted and must use internal and external QC measures. We have been offering hair hormone analysis to university researchers and clinical practitioners. You can contact me directly on [email protected] or view our Website at salpath.com.au for further information.

Thanks everyone. This thread is very helpful. I too am thinking of obtaining services for hair cortisol analysis as estimate of chronic stress. I will reach out to relevant parties as we progress in the project.

We would be happy to help. Please contact me at [email protected] for more details.

Best,

mark

Hi

I work now for hair cortical can anyone help me (Human sample ), what the procedure and method collection, Isolation of them and how is the cost of Kit

please tell me here or [email protected]

Hello, all hair cortisol folks. I think we need to update SOP's for our field. Our spiking studies have demonstrated that a single isopropanol wash is insufficient to remove external contamination. Spike hair with an external standard before the isopropanol wash to check it yourself. We optimized it to four 30 second washes. Also, for extractions, a single overnight methanol 55C extraction is very incomplete. It needs to be followed up by an acetone rinse and an additional overnight methanol extraction, as a minimum. Importantly, if ELISA is used for the measurement, after drying, we discovered that an additional acetone chasing step is a must to bring the LOB and LOD down. We run quadruplicate and not duplicate ELISA measurements in our lab. We strongly recommend designing longitudinal over cross-sectional studies. Our academic lab can help with salivary, blood, hair, and nail cortisol and testosterone measurements. It's reasonable to plan for at least $35/hair or nail sample for your grant writing purposes-prices wary between $25 (for academic collaborators) to $50 (for clinical commercial needs)/sample. Make sure that you use subject's race as a planned covariable for your work. Feel free to contact [email protected] for additional details.

Hi Everyone, can anyone recommend hair cortisol essay test companies in the US? Thanks!

Hi, my research group at the State University of New York at Oswego will be happy to help. Our capacity is about 6,000 samples per year, our current rates are as follows: we charge $18.61/sample for our academic lab expenses: chemicals, ELISA plates, and labor. The ESP calculates that for non-federal grants and service contracts, the total is going to be $33.18/sample; federally-funded studies will cost $45.76/sample. Our LOD is 1 pg/mg of hair. The target amount of hair is ~15 mg but we can work with as a little as 2.5 mg (R^2 is 0.994 for 2.5 to 20 mg range). Intraplate RSD is under 3%, interplate RSD is under 9%. Besides hair cortisol, we can measure cortisol in nails, saliva, and blood. We can provide a variety of stress measures, including salivary alpha amylase activity. Feel free to request more details (including our papers and current grants) by e-mailing me directly [email protected]

Happy to let you know that NY-based Stress Bioanalytics LLC can analyze hair or nail cortisol for $29.98/sample (2022 pricing). Contact [email protected]

We use well-established collection and processing protocols equivalent to those used in Dr. Laudenslager's and Dr. Meyer's studies. This method has been extensively validated, and our R^2 value for the amount of material vs. cortisol concentration extracted and measured is 0.998 (2022 data). The minimum amount of material required is only 2.5 mg. The target amount is 20 mg. We can process up to 12k samples annually. We can provide a LOS for a grant application upon request. Kind wishes, Kestas

In the last two years, we've processed over 4,000 samples in a dozen species for a multitude of collaborators and clients all over the country. The cost for hair/nail cortisol is $33.05/sample in 2024. To find more details, simply search for Stress Bioanalytics at Oswego, NY (phone and email are at the bottom of each page). We have lots of support materials. We'll be happy to help, Kestas

Kestutis G Bendinskas, I sent you an email just now to inquire about doing this in my upper level lab course for training purposes. Thanks for the info everyone!

In the last three years, Stress Bioanalytics has analyzed hair, nail, blood, fecal, and salivary cortisol for over 70 research groups. The cost for hair or nail cortisol in 2025 is 34.71/sample. We've worked with samples from various species, helping physicians, physiologists, psychologists, veterinarians, and training specialists with their research needs. No subcontracts are needed. Please send a quick note by email or text with any questions. All the details (including our recent publications and contact information) can be found at https://stressbioanalytics.com/about/ or by doing a quick web search for Stress Biolanlytics LLC at Oswego, NY.