Table of Cortisol levels in ME/CFS

[ScoutB]

This table is based off the Cortisol levels in ME/CFS thread.

I have been picking away at this over the past couple days (I am skimming each paper as well as Hutan's great notes, so going is slow). I figured it would be good to share the tiny bit I've done so far in case anyone has important feedback before I get too deep.

I am desperately trying to keep each row compact, so you can quickly scroll through and get a sense of the overall trend of the results. Probably if/when I add more studies I'll want to order them by relevance or maybe put a second table below the first for studies that don't technically check cortisol (e.g. Scott, 1999).

This is basically a rough draft (some notes on what I'm planning to change/do below). Feedback welcome, the only caveat being I probably don't want to add too much info to each line.

Author, Year	Findings related to Cortisol level	Participants	Notes
Korszun, 1999	No difference between patients and controls in the secretory pattern of cortisol in blood over 24 hours.	All women. FM (n = 9), CFS (n = 8), age and menstrual cycle phase matched controls.	Tracked blood cortisol levels every 10 minutes over a 24 hour period.
Scott, 1999	Patients selected on the basis of having a subnormal response to an ACTH test, had (50%) smaller adrenal glands than controls as measured by a CT scan.	8 patients (Fukuda CDC criteria), 55 heathy controls.	The authors put it well: “by selecting subjects with abnormally low cortisol responses, is one simply selecting a group with the smallest adrenal glands?”
Roberts, 2008	Cortisol levels in CFS patients appear to be within normal reference ranges, both before and after CBT.	41 patients (Fukuda CDC criteria). No controls.	Authors do not comment on the cortisol levels found, but they appear to be within the normal range, e.g. morning cortisol averaged ~11 nmol/L.
Roerink, 2018	No reduction in hair cortisol, nor total saliva cortisol output during the day. CFS patients showed a decreased cortisol awakening response.	107 CFS patients (Fukuda CDC criteria), 59 controls.	The awakening response is a rise in cortisol after awakening that occurs in some people and is reduced by naps, a schedule of waking later, pain and fatigue.
And so many more!

My to do list with this at the moment:

• Finish going through Hutan's thead.
• A new literature search, to double check we have everything.
• Standardize terms and define shorthand (e.g. FM = Fibromyalgia).
• Perhaps include a blurb on what we know about normal cortisol levels, e.g. reference ranges, issues like wake up time confounding results.

(Btw, I have no stance on if this stays as its own thread or is added to the existing cortisol thread. I figured it would be better not to clog up that thread with any comments about table formatting for now though.)