Like DHEA, cortisol is one of the body’s most abundant and important endogenous steroids. While detailing in full the expansive list of cortisol’s functions is impossible, we can generally say that cortisol’s role in the human body is to break down bodily tissue and nutrients for the purpose of energy provision (to be catabolic), to act as an immunosuppressive, and to regulate blood sugar. Cortisol fulfills these functions by inducing gluconeogenesis (the breakdown of non-glucose intermediates, such as amino acids in muscle tissue, into glucose) and glycogenolysis (the breakdown of glycogen into glucose), inhibiting peripheral glucose utilization, and inhibiting cell lines critical to the body’s immune response.
In less complex terms, we can simply say that cortisol is responsible for inhibiting many of the processes that we as fitness enthusiasts want to start, and for starting many of the processes that we want to inhibit.
Highlights of Core 5-AT:
Preventing our muscle cells from uptaking glucose (inducing insulin resistance).
Preventing muscle protein synthesis.
The breakdown of glycogen (the compound responsible for that “full look”).
Suppressing the immune processes involved in muscle growth.