Mindfulness is associated with improved psychological well-being but no change in stress biomarkers in breast cancer survivors with depression: a single group clinical pilot study

Table 4 Changes in the biomarker values during the 8-week MBSR-program (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction)

Biomarker		N	Mean values	Mean change compared to baseline (95% CI)	Effect size, Cohen’s d	T-statistics	p-value*	F-statistics	p-value, global
hs-CRP† (mg/l)	Baseline	19	0.21	–			–		0.49
	4 weeks	18	0.41	0.18 (− 0.24 to 0.60)	0.20	1.03	0.52	0.75
	8 weeks	18	0.36	0.18 (− 0.28 to 0.61)	0.19	0.90	0.60
Plasma-ACTH† (ng/l)	Baseline	18	2.79	–			–		0.19
	4 weeks	17	2.62	− 0.16 (− 0.51 to 0.19)	− 0.26	− 1.08	0.43	1.85
	8 weeks	17	2.86	0.025 (− 0.27 to 0.37)	0.08	0.36	0.89
Serum-Cortisol (nmol/l)	Baseline	19	361.2	–			–		0.93
	4 weeks	19	364.8	3.6 (− 58.9 to 66.2)	0.03	0.14	0.98	0.08
	8 weeks	18	359.0	− 6.4 (− 80.8 to 68.0)	− 0.05	− 0.21	0.97
24-h-Urine-Cortisol† (nmol/24 h)	Baseline	18	4.04	–			–		0.89
	4 weeks	18	4.03	− 0.01 (− 0.47 to 0.45)	− 0.02	− 0.06	1.00	0.12
	8 weeks	15	4.08	0.07 (− 0.38 to 0.52)	0.12	0.37	0.90

ACTH Adrenocorticotropine, hs-CRP High-sensitivity, C-reactive Protein, CI Confidence Interval
*p-value for mean change at 4 and 8 weeks compared to the baseline (Dunnett`s adjustment method); repeated measures analysis of variance
^†hs-CRP, ACTH and dU-Cortisol values were natural log-transformed for statistical analysis

ISSN: 1472-6874