Key Benefits

• Check how your body handles acute stress through cortisol and glucose levels.
• Spot excessive stress response that can spike blood sugar and strain metabolism.
• Explain fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, or sleep issues tied to cortisol swings.
• Flag possible adrenal imbalance that warrants confirmatory testing and targeted care.
• Guide nutrition, timing of meals, and stress reduction to stabilize glucose.
• Support pregnancy by identifying stress hyperglycemia that can complicate gestational health.
• Track recovery from illness or surgery by monitoring stress hormone and glucose trends.
• Best interpreted with collection timing, fasting status, A1c, and your symptoms.

What are Acute Stress

Acute stress biomarkers are the body’s fast-changing signals of a “fight-or-flight” response, showing how quickly you react to a challenge and how efficiently you return to baseline. They capture two linked control systems: the nerve-driven sympathetic surge (sympathetic–adrenomedullary pathway) and the hormone cascade from brain to adrenal gland (hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, HPA). In practice, this appears as short-lived rises in adrenaline and noradrenaline (epinephrine, norepinephrine), the pituitary messenger ACTH, the adrenal hormone cortisol, and co-released proteins or enzymes that mirror sympathetic outflow (salivary alpha-amylase, chromogranin A). Brief immune and metabolic signals may also flicker on (such as interleukin-6). Testing these markers maps the arc of stress—from trigger through peak to recovery—making the response visible and comparable across time or context. It helps distinguish a normal, transient surge from prolonged activation and shows whether the system is well coordinated. In short, acute stress biomarker testing turns the body’s rapid alarm circuitry into objective, trackable information.

Why are Acute Stress biomarkers important?

Acute Stress biomarkers are the body’s rapid-response signals that show how the brain–adrenal axis and metabolic systems mobilize energy and maintain blood pressure, alertness, and immune balance under challenge. Cortisol and glucose are central here: cortisol coordinates the stress response across organs, and glucose delivers immediate fuel to the brain and muscles.

Cortisol normally peaks in the early morning and falls by late evening; a common morning reference range is roughly 5–25, with optimal values typically sitting mid-range for the time of day rather than at the edges. Fasting glucose is often about 70–99, with optimal tending toward the lower end of normal without dipping low. Brief, context-appropriate bumps in both during stress are adaptive; sustained elevations away from the expected circadian pattern suggest strain or disease.

When values are low, they signal a blunted stress capacity. Inadequate cortisol production or an absent surge during stress reflects impaired hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal output and can lead to fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and low blood pressure; the body may also struggle to maintain glucose, causing shakiness, confusion, or fainting. Children and teens are more vulnerable to symptomatic low glucose, which can alter behavior and, if severe, provoke seizures. Pregnancy and estrogen use raise total (protein-bound) cortisol, so interpretation relies on time-of-day context; unexpectedly low results in these settings are particularly concerning.

Big picture: these biomarkers integrate circadian rhythm, autonomic tone, liver metabolism, and immune activity. Repeated high stress spikes link to insulin resistance, weight gain, hypertension, mood symptoms, and poorer sleep; an underpowered response raises risks during illness or surgery. Watching cortisol and glucose together helps map resilience, recovery, and long-term cardiometabolic and cognitive health.

What Insights Will I Get?

Acute stress testing shows how your body mobilizes energy and maintains stability under pressure. This response influences metabolism, cardiovascular tone, cognition, immunity, and reproductive signaling. At Superpower, we test Cortisol and Glucose to assess the immediacy and downstream effects of the stress response.

Cortisol is the primary glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal cortex and governed by the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. It rises within minutes during acute stress and follows a strong daily rhythm. An appropriate surge with timely return toward baseline indicates resilient HPA reactivity. Excessive, prolonged, or blunted responses—or a flattened daily pattern—suggest impaired stress-system control and reduced physiological flexibility.

Glucose is the circulating fuel for brain and muscle, regulated by insulin, glucagon, cortisol, and catecholamines. Acute stress transiently raises glucose via glycogen breakdown and gluconeogenesis to meet immediate demand. A brief, contained rise reflects effective energy mobilization. Persistently elevated or highly variable glucose points to metabolic inflexibility and amplified sympathetic/HPA signaling; unusually low levels during stress may indicate inadequate counterregulation.

Notes: Interpretation depends on timing (time of day, sample relative to a stressor), fasting status, recent exercise, sleep loss or shift work, intercurrent illness, pregnancy, age, and body composition. Medications such as glucocorticoids, stimulants, beta-agonists, beta-blockers, and certain antidepressants alter these markers. Assay method and lab-to-lab variability, especially for cortisol, also influence results.