The researchers stated that a physical effect as common as visible sweat was a biomarker that predicted where the teenagers were going with their lives regardless of when the condition started. In my opinion, the researchers didn’t prove their case that “elevated morning cortisol” adequately identified teenagers who needed help.

Cortisol is an effect of multiple potential causes, including stress, which itself is often an effect of multiple potential causes. One common cause of stress and its cortisol byproduct is diet, for example, when a person consumes caffeine.

By disregarding the study’s main subjects’ histories, the study could not prove causes for any present or future effects. A correlation is the best that could ever be shown by an autobiographic memory test, in my opinion. And the study’s main finding hinged on this third-order observational method of trying to figure out what’s going on in the subjects’ brains.

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