Effect of Acute Noise Exposure on Salivary Cortisol: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Cardiovascular adverse effects are interesting aspects of occupational noise exposure. One possible mechanism of these effects is an alternation in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Our aim was to measure salivary cortisol response to relatively high-intensity noise exposure in a controlled randomized trial study. We exposed 50 male volunteers to 90 dBA noise for 20 minutes and compared their level of salivary cortisol with 50 non-exposed controls. Salivary samples obtained before and after exposure. Before intervention means (SD) salivary cortisol level were 3.24 (0.47)^ng/ml and 3.25 (0.41)^ng/ml for exposed and non-exposed groups respectively. Mean salivary cortisol level increased to 4.17 ng/mlafter intervention in exposure group. This increment was statistically significant (P=0.00). Mean salivary cortisol level of the non-exposed group had statistically non-significant decrement after this period (0.2 ng/ml). The difference between salivary cortisol level of non-exposed and exposed groups after the intervention was statistically significant. Noise exposure may affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, and this may be one of the mechanisms of noise exposure cardiovascular effects.