A Perspective on “Burn-Out” (Adrenocortical Hypfunction) – Part X – A Unified Hypothesis Linking Cortisol and Dopamine

IT IS BOTH INTERESTING AND GRATIFYING to note that over the space of time that I have been writing this series, it has become apparent that many clinicians, authors, and lecturers are becoming increasingly aware that the issue of stress is much more than finding ways to lower elevated cortisol, as we seem to have concluded so boldly in the 1990s. Now it is becoming routine to consider in chronically stressed patients the equally important issue of catecholamine function where, as with cortisol, both hyper- and hypofunction can contribute to many of the most common and most challenging clinical issues we face today. Furthermore, serotonin is now beginning to receive wide recognition as not just a neurohormone that is linked with depression but as an important component of stress physiology that must often receive just as much attention as cortisol and catecholamines when attempting to optimize the health of so many of today’s chronically ill patients.