This cortisol test measures the level of cortisol in your blood to see if your levels are normal.
Cortisol is made by your adrenal glands, two small glands that sit above the kidneys. A gland in your brain, called the pituitary gland, makes a hormone that tells your adrenal glands how much cortisol to make. If your cortisol levels are too high or too low, it may mean you have a disorder of your adrenal glands, a problem with your pituitary gland, or a tumor that makes cortisol.
Cortisol is a hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue in your body.
It helps your body:
- Respond to stress (cortisol is sometimes called the "stress hormone")
- Reduce inflammation
- Regulate blood sugar and metabolism (how your body uses food for energy)
- Control blood pressure
Without treatment, cortisol levels that are too high or too low can be very serious.
Low levels of cortisol may mean you have Addison disease or secondary adrenal insufficiency:
You may have these symptoms:
- Weight loss
- Muscle and joint pain
- Fatigue, or extreme long-lasting tiredness
- Low blood pressure
- Belly pain
- Irritability and depression
- Nausea, vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Dark patches of skin
- For women, decreased armpit and pubic hair and decreased sexual desire
The most common cause of low cortisol levels is suddenly stopping steroid medicines after using them for a long time.
If your cortisol results aren't normal, it doesn't always mean you have a medical condition that needs treatment. Cortisol levels can be affected by:
- Stress
- Pregnancy
- Exercise
- Serious illness
- Hot and cold temperatures
- Certain thyroid diseases
- Obesity
- Certain medicines, such as birth control pills
Understand and improve your laboratory results with our health dashboard.
Upload your lab reports and get your interpretation today.
Our technology helps to understand, combine, track, organize, and act on your medical lab test results.
High levels of cortisol may be a sign that you have Cushing's syndrome.
It may be caused by:
- Taking high doses of certain steroid medicines for a long time to treat conditions, such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus
- Tumors in your pituitary gland or other parts of your body that make too much of the hormone that tells your adrenal glands to make cortisol
- Tumors in your adrenal glands that make extra cortisol
If your cortisol results aren't normal, it doesn't always mean you have a medical condition that needs treatment. Cortisol levels can be affected by:
- Stress
- Pregnancy
- Exercise
- Serious illness
- Hot and cold temperatures
- Certain thyroid diseases
- Obesity
- Certain medicines, such as birth control pills
-----
Cortisol levels may be high in people with psychiatric disorders, alcoholism, or morbid obesity. This may be called "pseudo-Cushing state."
Interpret Your Lab Results
Upload your lab report, and we'll interpret and provide you with recommendations today.
Get Started
Monthly plan
Annual plan
Own it for life
Our exclusive data entry service is a convenient way to get your results into your private dashboard. Simply attach an image or a file of your lab test results, and one of our qualified data entry team members will add the results for you. We support all sorts of files, whether PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is excellent whether you have a lot of reports to upload or are too busy to do the data entry yourself.
We strive to make the data entry process easy for you. Whether by offering dozens of templates to choose from that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels or by giving you instant feedback on the entered values. Our data entry forms are an easy, fast, and convenient way to enter the reports yourself. There is no limit on how many lab reports you can upload.
$15 /month
billed every month
Most popular
Data entry included
$79 /year
$6.60/month billed annually
Data entry included
$250 /once
own it for life
Are You a Health Professional?
Get started with our professional plan
Welcome to Healthmatters Pro.
Save time on interpreting lab results with the largest database of biomarkers online. In-depth research on any test at your fingertips, all stored and tracked in one place. Learn more
Pro Monthly Plus
for health professionals
$75 per month
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
17-Hydroxypregnenolone, MS (female), 17-OH Progesterone, ACTH, Plasma, ADH, Aldos/Renin Ratio, Aldosterone, Aldosterone/Plasma Renin Activity Ratio, Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH), Calcitonin, Serum, Cortisol - ACTH (Cortrosyn) Stimulation Test, Cortisol - AM (Serum), Cortisol, Serum, Cortisol-Binding Globulin (CBG), DHEA-S : Cortisol Ratio, DHEAS (Serum), Estradiol, Estradiol (male), Estradiol, Ultrasensitive, LC/MS, Estriol, Serum, Estrogens, Total (female), Estrogens, Total (male), Estrone, Serum (Female), Estrone, Serum (Male), Free Cortisol, Serum, Glucagon, Growth Hormone, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), Total, IA-2 Autoantibodies, IGF Binding Protein 1 (IGFBP 1), Leptin, Progesterone (male), Progesterone (Serum), Prolactin, Renin Activity, Plasma
