Fig. 11

Stress-related serum biomarkers in healthy controls, early and late OA patients. Concentrations of A NE (healthy controls n = 28, early OA patients n = 15, late OA patients n = 49), B E (healthy controls n = 27, early OA patients n = 14, late OA patients n = 42), C cortisol (healthy controls n = 29, early OA patients n = 11, late OA patients n = 85), D DHEA-S (healthy controls n = 29, early OA patients n = 14, late OA patients n = 102), and E cortisol/DHEA-S (healthy controls n = 29, early OA patients n = 11, late OA patients n = 85) in the serum of study participants. Biomarker levels are represented as box plots with whiskers. Each circle represents an individual patient. Significant p-values between groups are presented as *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001. The black line represents the Spearman’s rank correlation with GoD