Cortisol is often referred to as the stress hormone… mistakenly. 

Cortisol is the anti-inflammatory hormone and is secreted in response to negative stress, oxidative stress, and inflammation as the solution. It’s not the cause.

Think of a shoulder or spinal injury with a lot of inflammation and pain. What do they prescribe or inject directly into the injured area in bad cases?

Prednisone is a potent anti-inflammatory medication, which is synthetic cortisol.

During extended fasting, a very powerful, visual, and prominent anti-inflammatory response is noted almost every time, thanks to cortisol.

At the same time cortisol is released, another powerful hormone, the fountain of youth hormone, human growth hormone, is released in similar amounts, and they work together in the fasted state.

They only work together in this unique metabolic fasted state because insulin is super low.

In any other situation, they also work together when insulin is high, and you have high cortisol. 

They negatively work against us when secreted together in the fed metabolic state.

In the fed state, when insulin and cortisol are secreted together, one form food and the other stress, they cause fat storage and, when chronic, can cause muscle to break down. Not good.

When human growth hormone is due to fasting, the muscle is spared and maintained during the process, so we don’t immediately break down any muscle tissue or lose a single muscle fiber through fasting.

The fasting metabolism is a perfect integration of the hormonal response and that’s part of what makes the health impact and healing that can be obtained so powerful and often very rapid.

Insulin and human growth hormone work inversely, meaning that when insulin is up, human growth hormone can’t be. 

This makes the low insulin level the key to this body-reshaping recipe found in fasting. It can’t happen any other way.

So when you hear that fasting raises cortisol, understand that it is very positive and precisely what you want and what should happen.

Yet another reason why regular, well-planned, and executed rotational fasting can change your health, body, and future!

We can do better!

Dr. Don