Cortisol is known as the stress hormone. I tested mine for three weeks, and learned the truth about it.
A writer explores the trend of at-home cortisol testing, questioning whether the hormone is truly responsible for common adult symptoms like fatigue and weight gain. The article highlights the disconnect between social media wellness trends and the reality of biological tracking.
Why it matters
It addresses the growing consumer trend of self-diagnosing health issues using unregulated or over-hyped at-home medical testing kits.
It’s a Sunday morning, and in the tradition of Sunday mornings, I’m luxuriating in having nowhere to go and nowhere to be. I begin to drift back to sleep, when my eyes shoot open. I ’ m awake! I have to take a cortisol test! Dragging myself out of bed, I open a plastic-wrapped kit that looks weirdly like a pregnancy test, pop it in my mouth (saliva, not pee, is the relevant bodily fluid in this case), and swipe to the corresponding app on my phone (there’s always an app, isn’t there?).
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