Massage increases oxytocin and reduces adrenocorticotropin hormone in humans

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin and ACTH (Corticotropin) in this clinical trial publication.

This study examined the effect of massage on oxytocin and also measured its effect on other physiologic factors, including adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH), nitric oxide (NO), and beta-endorphin (BE).

Why It Was Studied

Human beings are highly social creatures who often touch each other during social interactions.

Oxytocin (OT) is a hormone known to facilitate social bonding, and touch may affect OT release.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 65 participants taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were young adults and adults, both men and women.

The research team advertised that the trial would study relaxation and assigned participants randomly to the intervention or the control group.

A lab administrator assigned a random numeric code to participants to mask their identities.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

The study took place at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA.

Ninety-five people from UCLA gave written informed consent for participation in the study, with the team paying them to participate.

The intervention group included 65 participants and the control group 30 participants.

For the intervention (massage) group, the research team drew participants' blood and followed the blood draw with 15 minutes of moderate-pressure massage of the upper back.

The control (rest) group rested quietly for 15 minutes after the blood draw.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, Massage, Oxytocin, Pituitary-Adrenal System and Stress, Psychological.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Oxytocin and ACTH (Corticotropin) in 65 participants.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2012 (Alternative therapies in health and medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page and the ACTH (Corticotropin) compound page, all human trials.