| Last week in New and Noteworthy, I mentioned a new study that showed the most common characteristic among people suffering from "Long COVID" was extremely low cortisol levels. Now, that might sound counterintuitive. I mean, isn't low cortisol a good thing? Not exactly. The problem with cortisol is when it's chronically elevated. It's a stress hormone, after all, and if you are in a constant state of stress and elevated cortisol, bad things happen. You will go catabolic. Your muscles will waste away. You'll gain body fat. Your bone health will suffer. Almost anything bad that you can imagine will happen if you're in a constant state of high stress. But remember that the cortisol response is how your body responds to stress. If you need to respond to stress, a cortisol spike is protective. It's physiological, not pathological. Spikes go high then recede. It's the same with insulin—spikes good, chronic elevation bad. In long COVID patients, they're not spiking. They're not responding to stress at all. But the stressors are still out there, and their ability to counter those stressors is non-existent. That's why their immunity suffers and they get sick with all these weird viruses that never bothered them before—they can't mount a good response. So what would I recommend to anyone with long COVID-related chronically-low cortisol levels? First, reduce stress as much as possible. Your ability to respond to said stress is impaired right now, so you need to make your life as simple and easy as possible. You want to minimize intense exercise, hardcore dieting, and calorie restriction. I wouldn't try some intense ultra-low fat diet or low-carb diet. I'd just eat healthy Primal foods, and eat enough of them. Don't fast. Don't do fasted exercise. Don't do sprints or heavy protracted weight lifting sessions. Eat plenty of salt and potassium, two electrolytes that can really help with your adrenal gland's ability to function. Consider using adaptogens. Adaptogens are meant to improve your stress response in either direction. If it's too high, they try to lower it. If it's too low, they try to raise it. I've only seen one study that looked at a blend of adaptogens called Chisan (rhodiola rosea, eleutherococcus, and schisandra) in long COVID patients, and it seemed to help—although they didn't look at cortisol levels specifically, rather fatigue and overall function. These are fairly safe "interventions" that may help. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has or had long COVID. What did you do or what are you doing to overcome it? Let me know in the comment section of New and Noteworthy. | 
