Sugar administration prior acute psychosocial stress exposure was shown to enhance subsequent salivary cortisol responses. However, this finding is based on studies that have administered high doses of glucose to male subjects after long fasting periods. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated the effect of different sugar-containing drinks on acute cortisol stress responses under experimental conditions that are commonplace in stress research and our sample included females and males. Our primary aim was to derive feasible recommendations for a standardized sugar administration in future studies. Of the 103 healthy young participants (49 females, 54 males), 72 were confronted with the Trier Social Stress Test after being randomly assigned to one of three sugar conditions (200 ml of grape juice, a 75 g glucose or a 75 g maltodextrin drink); 31 subjects served as control sample and were exposed to the TSST without sugar administration. Cortisol stress responses were significantly enhanced in the grape juice as well as the glucose group as compared to the control group. Post hoc analysis revealed that this effect seemed to be more pronounced in males than in females. We did not find a significant effect of maltodextrin. Cortisol responder rates in all three experimental groups were higher than in the control group. Our results suggest that, at least in males, the administration of 200 ml of grape juice is sufficient to facilitate HPA axis reactivity and to minimize confounding effects due to interindividual differences in energy availability while being exposed to a laboratory stress paradigm. The unexpected gender-specific effect is of potential relevance and should be scrutinized in future studies.

中文翻译：

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糖对急性心理社会应激皮质醇反应的影响

在急性心理社会压力暴露之前施用糖被证明可以增强随后的唾液皮质醇反应。然而，这一发现是基于对男性受试者在长时间禁食后给予高剂量葡萄糖的研究。因此，在本研究中，我们在压力研究中常见的实验条件下研究了不同含糖饮料对急性皮质醇应激反应的影响，我们的样本包括女性和男性。我们的主要目标是为未来研究中的标准化糖管理提供可行的建议。在 103 名健康的年轻参与者（49 名女性，54 名男性）中，72 名在被随机分配到三种糖条件之一（200 毫升葡萄汁、75 克葡萄糖或 75 克麦芽糊精饮料）；31 名受试者作为对照样品，并在不给予糖的情况下暴露于 TSST。与对照组相比，葡萄汁和葡萄糖组的皮质醇应激反应显着增强。事后分析表明，这种影响在男性中似乎比在女性中更明显。我们没有发现麦芽糊精的显着影响。所有三个实验组的皮质醇应答率均高于对照组。我们的结果表明，至少在男性中，200 毫升葡萄汁的给药足以促进 HPA 轴反应性，并最大限度地减少由于暴露于实验室压力范式时个体间能量可用性差异而产生的混杂效应。