Do you have cortisol face?

“Cortisol face” is trending on TikTok — if your cheeks are looking a little puffy or rounded, social media users might lead you believe that you have an issue with your cortisol levels.
But cortisol face isn’t an actual medical term, and matching the visual requirements doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with your cortisol levels, medical experts say.
Cortisol face, also referred to on social media as “moon face,” can be due to obesity or Cushing’s syndrome, per WebMD. Other symptoms of Cushing’s can include a hump on the back of the neck, noticeable pink or purple abdominal stretch marks, fatigue and hair growth on the face.
Here’s what medical experts want you to know about the misinformation surrounding cortisol.
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Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone, according to WebMD. It serves many functions, including regulating blood pressure and blood sugar, controlling your sleep cycle, keeping inflammation down, managing the body’s use of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and helping your body handle and regulate stress.
Cushing’s syndrome is the diagnosis for having too much cortisol. It could be the result of taking a certain medication (usually glucocorticoids, which are used to treat some autoimmune diseases), or pituitary, adrenal or other tumors, which are usually benign but could be cancerous, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
But that isn’t automatically cause for panic. Gynecologist Karen Tang, M.D., tells USA TODAY that significant issues with cortisol imbalance are rare. It only affects 10 to 15 people per million every year, mostly cisgender women between the ages of 20 and 50, according to the Endocrine Society. She cautions against listening to medical advice on social media, which can make health issues seem more common than they actually are.
“It can make you feel as if basically everyone has a hormone imbalance,” Tang says of the cortisol discourse online. “It’s very effective marketing, because who hasn’t had problems with fatigue or difficulty with weight loss or their mood? It feels like it’s applicable to almost everyone. Obviously, almost everyone does not have a true hormone imbalance or endocrine condition that needs treatment.”
The aforementioned symptoms could be a sign that you need to take further steps with a doctor to test whether you actually have a cortisol imbalance, and work to bring those levels back to normal.
“But for most people, when we talk about cortisol as a stress hormone that spikes if you’re under stress or if you’re not getting enough sleep, if we were to check your cortisol levels in your blood, they would be normal,” Tang says. “So it’s not something that needs treatment, per se.”
In those cases, she says your best bet is to focus on things like stress management, a balanced diet, sleep and exercise to keep your blood pressure and blood sugar at regular rates.
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“That being said, if you are noticing that there’s something really different, your health has changed in a noticeable way that’s affecting your quality of life, you’re having significant weight gain, if you’re going through perimenopause and you’re having terrible mood symptoms or other really bothersome symptoms, it’s definitely important to go see your doctor to ask for an evaluation,” Tang says.