IN THE NEWS: Cortisol, the stress hormone, is essential for everyday life. Like many things, there can be too much of a good thing when daily stress causes it to spike.
Does that elevated cortisol cause a puffy face? Not necessarily, says UCI Health endocrinologist Dr. Mehboob A. Hussain, speaking to Huffpost. It’s mostly likely another health condition that’s to blame.
“Most of the time it’s not going to be Cushing’s syndrome. It’s most likely going to be something else that is something more frequent … PCOS [polycystic ovary syndrome], obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome. Those are associated with these changes.”
Hussain is a board-certified UCI Health endocrinologist at UCI Health Endocrinology Services who specializes in diabetes, metabolic disorders and diseases of the endocrine system. He is also a professor and chief of the Division of Endocrinology in the Department of Medicine at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. His research interests include body weight, energy metabolism, insulin and lipid metabolism.