Summary
To study the effect of sex hormones on the hemostatic responses to stress, blood samples
were collected before, during, and after 20 min of mental stress from 9 healthy, non-smoking
female volunteers, examined in the follicular and luteal phase. Mental stress caused
significant increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and plasma catecholamines. In
addition, analysis of variance indicated significant changes of leukocyte count, hematocrit,
fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor antigen, t-PA activity and antigen in response to
the stress test. However, in contrast to a male group previously investigated, there
were no significant changes in factor VII coagulant activity in either menstrual phase.
Overall the responses were more pronounced in the luteal as compared to the follicular
phase. The findings support the concept that both gender and physiological variations
in female sex hormones may modulate hemostatic responses to psychosocial stress.
