Adrenal steroid hormone responses to exercise under thermal stress: potential role for non classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia in heat illness susceptibility
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We queried whether adrenal insufficiency attributable to non-classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia (21 hydroxylase deficiency, 21OHD) might contribute to heat illness susceptibility. Patients referred to a specialist heat illness clinic (n = 2 with prior hyponatremia; n = 16 lacking documentary evidence) and controls (n = 16) underwent laboratory Heat Tolerance Assessment (HTA: 60–90 min walking, 60% relative intensity, 34°C heat), synthetic adrenocorticotrophic hormone stimulation (heat illness only) and CYP21A2 genotyping (hyponatremic heat illness only). Copeptin, cortisol, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, and 21 deoxycortisol were assayed from blood at baseline and post-HTA, with precursor product [17-hydroxyprogesterone +21 deoxycortisol] expressed relative to cortisol. Saliva and urine were assayed for free cortisol (one hyponatremic case, controls). Versus controls, normonatremic heat illness exhibited greater (p < 0.05) serum cortisol across HTA, while hyponatremic heat illness showed blunted responses in aldosterone and free cortisol (salivary cortisol 1.6 and 1.6 vs. 6.0 [4.2, 19.4] and 4.2 [3.8, 19.2] nmol.L-1; urine cortisol 19 vs. 117 +/− 71 nmol.L-1). Hyponatremic heat illness demonstrated elevated precursor product consistent with 21OHD and multiple CYP21A2 mutations. One normonatremic case of heat illness also showed elevated precursor product. These data support the potential for 21OHD to precipitate heat illness under sustained physical stress and advance a case for targeted genetic screening.
Date Issued
2025-03-01
Date Acceptance
2025-02-28
Citation
Physiological Reports, 2025, 13 (6)
ISSN
2051-817X
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Physiological Reports
Volume
13
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2025 Crown copyright and The Author(s). Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the King's Printer for Scotland. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
10.14814/phy2.70272
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e70272
Date Publish Online
2025-03-20