Hello, welcome along to the Lizelle Wellbeing show with me, Lizelle. Well, it's Monday,

and that time of the week it's all about you. It's a space for you to voice your questions,

your opinions and your thoughts with me. And then I will share some insights and data-driven research

to hopefully inspire you to truly thrive in midlife.

Well, if you have a question for me, do get in touch. All the contact details are in the episode

description and at the end of the episode. And today, coming up, Elaine asks about symptoms of

stress, and I'll be helping Alice with her gum health. And then as we

slide into the winter month, Sylvie has a great immune boosting question. And then Mel wants to

know about potential toxins in HRT. And then finally, I'll be talking about some supplements

for shifting stubborn belly fat.

Well, let's kick off today with Elaine, who has a topical question on cortisol.

You say, my feed is full of ads for diets and supplements for high cortisol.

If you have a hanging belly, itchy skin, fatigue, then you may have high cortisol.

How do you know it's cortisol and not something else?

Can you get tested?

What's the best way to reduce cortisol?

Hi, Elaine. This is interesting. And I'm glad you've asked this because cortisol, you know, it's one of those words

that gets thrown around on social media all the time. I think quite often it's oversimplified or

perhaps misleading. While cortisol is hugely important for our health and it can definitely go

out of balance, I think the story is a lot more nuanced than those ads would suggest. So let's unpack

it step by step. Cortisol is often called our stress hormone, but it's not the enemy. Far from it,

it's a steroid hormone. It's made by the adrenal glands and it's released as part of the

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