Cortisol supplements, including for women and weight loss

Cortisol supplements are sold to women as a weight-loss plan. The papers do not say that. A hormone moving in a lab, or a stress score moving in a small trial, is not a smaller waist.

Ashwagandha and body weight

Choudhary 2017 (PMID 27055824, doi:10.1177/2156587216641830) randomized 52 adults under chronic stress to ashwagandha root extract 300 mg twice a day or placebo for 8 weeks. The abstract says stress scores and secondary measures, including serum cortisol, body weight, and BMI, improved, and that the extract was safe. It does not print the kilogram change or the cortisol change. It does not say the group was women. The authors suggest it for weight management under chronic stress. That sentence is bigger than the numbers in the abstract. The skeptical ashwagandha essay, including later cortisol reviews, is already published. This page does not repeat effect sizes from reviews that were not the source of the weight claim.

Phosphatidylserine

Hellhammer 2014 (PMID 25081826) tested a soy phosphatidylserine and phosphatidic acid complex in 75 healthy men for 42 days. The higher dose was 400 mg phosphatidylserine plus 400 mg phosphatidic acid. It normalized ACTH and salivary and serum cortisol responses to a lab stress test in the high-stress subgroup, not in the low-stress subgroup. The lower dose, 200 mg of each, did not. Heart rate and the psychological stress score did not change. That is a stress-test result in men. It is not weight loss, and it is not a trial in women.

A different phosphatidylserine complex trial (Schmidt 2018, PMID 29576358) improved premenstrual symptom scores over three cycles versus placebo. The abstract does not report weight or cortisol. It is not a fat-loss study.

What this is not

An amino-acid drink that blunted the cortisol rise after a single workout (PMID 32703216) is an acute exercise study. Three authors work for the company that makes the drink (Meiji). It is not a cortisol supplement for weight loss. Nothing above shows that lowering, or normalizing, a cortisol measurement makes women lose weight.

Questions people ask

Do cortisol supplements help women lose weight?

No trial we read shows that. The ashwagandha abstract suggests weight management and does not print the kilogram change or say the subjects were women.

Does phosphatidylserine lower cortisol?

In 75 men, 400 mg phosphatidylserine plus 400 mg phosphatidic acid normalized the cortisol response to a lab stress test in the high-stress subgroup. Half that dose did not. Psychological stress scores did not change. It was not a weight-loss trial and not a trial in women.