Cortisol

 Cortisol comes from the adrenal glands. It is your survival hormone. Medically, a deficiency of this hormone is called Addison’s disease, and is fatal without cortisone therapy. An overabundance of this hormone is called Cushing’s disease. People mostly think of cortisol in terms of a popular condition known as ‘adrenal fatigue’. Adrenal fatigue is very difficult to prove with a lab test, and takes months to correct. But that doesn’t mean that the people with this condition don’t suffer. Part of what makes it difficult to accept in standard medical practice is the lack of a good, objective way of measuring it. The other factor making it difficult to conceive is the fact that we know cortisol is a survival hormone. The body will make cortisol out of other hormones if sufficiently stressed. This means it will break down the sex hormones (probably not needed if you’re in a concentration camp) to make cortisol.