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A comment on Avoiding Burnout. Parent comment

Re:Avoiding Burnout by cpncrunch on Tuesday April 30, 2013 @11:24PM (#5636283)
While I agree with most of what you say, the problem is that a lot of studies have been done on the HPA axis and cortisol in CFS/burnout, but there is no agreement. Some studies find low cortisol, others don't. There is definitely HPA axis dysfunction, but nobody can seem to pin it down. I suspect that if you measured cortisol throughout the day and correlated it to a symptom diary and/or a stress test, you might be able to come up with a diagnostic test.

The other issue is that there is no cheap and easy cortisol test like there is for blood glucose. As far as I can tell it would be possible to develop such a test, but nobody has done it yet for a number of reasons (lack of demand, cost, FDA approval, etc).

If someone were to [1] figure out a definitive test for burnout/CFS and [2] develop/patent a home testing kit they would be very rich and help a lot of people into the bargain.

As for Teitelbaum: while he does have some useful stuff to say, he also peddles a lot of quackery.

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Re:Avoiding Burnout by ahoyhere on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @12:52AM (#5636524)
Re: the contradictory studies… if you go with the group of practitioners who argue that there are different stages to the disorder, they're not contradictory at all. The stages argument says a person starts off with very high cortisol output (because you're under stress) and this is what causes the damage and fall-off of production later:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10633533

The 24-hour saliva cortisol test costs about $100 and should tell you a lot:

http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/cortisol/ta...

There are definitive clinical (non-blood) tests for hypothyroid (I mentioned several of them), there are also ways to test for FM/CFS (muscle recovery among others). They just don't get used a lot.

As for quackery -- the only quackery I read in Teitelbaum's book was about the allergy treatment and it's not any more or less quacky than acupuncture (where the research was discredited) so I consider it harmless. Every "canonical" scientist has some kind of nutty side, from Isaac Newton on down the line. (Note: Not comparing Teitelbaum to Newton whatsoever. It's just an ideal, extreme, example.) Everything else in his book is supported with research citations. I've checked them, and others, because I followed his advice.

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