Stressful situations use to trigger a cascade of stress hormones that produce well-orchestrated physiological changes. This combination of reactions to stress is also known as the "fight-or-flight" response because it evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, the body can also overreact to stressors that are not life-threatening, such as traffic jams. Many disorders may originate from stress, especially if the stress is severe and prolonged. Cortisol is the end product of the hormonal cascade provoked by stress and therefore it has been seen as the ideal marker to evaluate stress. However, cortisol measurement and its interpretation have several critical drawbacks which limited its use. Despite this fact, currently, there is not a suitable alternative for cortisol measurements. At that point researchers must decide if we want to “fight” for having an appropriate marker if we decide to “flight” and continuing using cortisol. In this talk I will present our research going in search of appropriate biomarkers for stress measurements. Oscar Pozo is a team leader at the Integrative pharmacology and systems neuroscience research group of IMIM. His lab is focused on Applied Metabolomics by developing analytical methods suitable for detecting changes produced in the metabolic routes of interest, and applying those methods to various healthcare areas.
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