Hormones
Cortisol / DHEA-S Ratio
What This Marker Tells Us
Compares your primary stress hormone to DHEA-S, an anabolic hormone that buffers cortisol's effects, revealing net catabolic versus anabolic balance under stress.
Why It Matters
Captures stress resilience beyond cortisol alone. Cortisol mobilizes energy during stress but becomes destructive when chronically elevated, breaking down muscle, suppressing immunity, and impairing cognition. DHEA-S provides anabolic counterbalance, preserving lean tissue, supporting immune function, and protecting against cortisol's negative effects. High ratios indicate stress overwhelming resilience, which is a catabolic state driving muscle loss, inflammation, cognitive decline, and accelerated aging.
How to Interpret Your Trends
Low ratios suggest excellent stress resilience with robust DHEA-S buffering cortisol's effects. Typical ratios indicate balanced stress response with adequate resilience. High ratios signal stress overwhelming protective mechanisms, either from excessive cortisol, depleted DHEA-S, or both. This imbalance accelerates aging, impairs recovery, and increases disease risk. Context from symptoms and stressors guides interpretation.
What Influences This Marker
Chronic stress, overtraining, inadequate sleep, and poor nutrition elevate cortisol while depleting DHEA-S, worsening the ratio. Aging naturally lowers DHEA-S. Intense exercise without adequate recovery raises cortisol. Meditation, adequate sleep, recovery protocols, and adaptogenic herbs improve the ratio. Balancing training stress with recovery optimizes this balance.
How Your Team Uses It
Your coach uses this ratio to assess stress resilience and recovery capacity, guiding training intensity, recovery protocols, and stress management strategies. High ratios prompt deload weeks, sleep optimization, meditation practice, and adaptogen consideration. The ratio validates whether current stress load matches recovery capacity.
Related Signals We Also Review
Cortisol, DHEA-S, testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, thyroid function, sleep quality metrics, and training load complete the stress and recovery assessment.