The Impact of Complicated Grief on Diurnal Cortisol Levels Two Years After Loss: A Population-Based Study.

Objective: Few studies have focused on the effect of complicated grief-unresolved and prolonged grief-on the neuroendocrine systems. The present study examined the association of complicated grief and normal grief with the diurnal cortisol patterns in a large population-based study.

Methods: This study was set in the Rotterdam Study and comprised 2084 persons aged older than 55 years (mean [SD] age, 64.

Genetic diversity is a predictor of mortality in humans.

Background: It has been well-established, both by population genetics theory and direct observation in many organisms, that increased genetic diversity provides a survival advantage. However, given the limitations of both sample size and genome-wide metrics, this hypothesis has not been comprehensively tested in human populations. Moreover, the presence of numerous segregating small effect alleles that influence traits that directly impact health directly raises the question as to whether global measures of genomic variation are themselves associated with human health and disease.