Frankly, often times I think that all this inflammation thing is just an excuse to sell over the counter supps.
Also, there’s a clear pattern in inflammatory conditions that get improved by things like sleep deprivation (higher cortisol). ELI5
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Inflammation, the immune system, and the stress response are all really complicated, in a way where every answer leads to more questions, and the more you learn, the less you know.
In this case, cortisol and related hormones have a ton of different functions, and are some of the broadest-acting signals your body can make. They’re supposed to be regulated by a feedback loop, (i.e. if there’s already plenty of the hormone around, start making less.) Importantly, the timing makes a difference. A sudden burst of cortisol helps stand down acute inflammation. Chronically high cortisol throws off the whole regulatory system, and can lead to chronically high inflammation.
Cortisol is a glucocorticoid, a type of steroid hormine that is produced in the fasciculate zone of the arenal gland’s cortex. It is known as a stress hormone because one of its functions is defending a body from stress.
Cortisol’s effect on the immune system is largely supressive; it inhibits the chemotaxis (movement towards the infected site) of the immune cells, it stop the tissues from producing cytokines (molecules that attract white blood cells and lymphocytes), it decreases the swelling of the infected site caused because of higher permeability of the blood vessels etc. You can see that its effects are quite useful when we want to stop an immunological explosion after a small infection. Cortisol is ofter used by doctors to treat idiopathic rashes and allergies alongside epinephrine/adrenalin (idiopathic means me don’t know the cause of the problem)
However, cortisol has a much larger, systemic, effect on the body. It raises blood sugar (to prepare us for the stressful situation) it mobilizes fats and proteins from the limbs to be used as sources of energy. It also has a relatively weak mineralocorticoid effect meaning that it can act as a mineralocorticoid, a different kind of a steroid hormone, that regulates the water amount in our bodies and, importantly, the ionic composition of that water.
So as you can see, cortisol is great short term for acute forms of stress such as an infection, but because of its greater effect on the body, its constant production can be harmful and even hinder the healing process of the damaged tissue caused by the infection. That is why lowering stress is recommended for long term wound healing
Now, let’s take things to the extreme. What if, for some reason, you start producing a lot of cortisol for extended periods of time. Thankfully, as u/police-ical above me explained, cortisol is preduced a feedback loop meaning that if more of it is producied, it will halt the further production of that hormone on its own. So, a raised concentration of cortisol in the blood would stop the further production of cortisol in a healthy person, however, sometimes that feedback loop fails and people produce a lot of cortisol with really no way of stopping it, note that this often happens with brain or adrenal cancers.
If cortisol levels are too high for extended periods of time, the person develops Cushing’s syndrome which is characterized by high blood sugar (because of cortisol’s effect on the metabolism of sugars. These people can even develop diabetic symptoms because of their high blood sugar concentration), a large torso with thin arms and legs (because cortisol breaks down fats and proteins in the limbs to be used for energy production). These people have a characteristic back hump like a bison and a specific moon like face shape because of high fat aggregation olin their chest, abdomen, and face. These people also bruise easily and have a difficult time healing wounds because of cortisol’s immunosupressive ability.
As you can see, cortisol has a large scale effect on our bodies, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of its effect on the organism, but i think this much should give you a general idea that answers your question. Of course, if you have further questions, don’t hesitate
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