Adrenal Cocktails: Do They Actually Work? …C0NTINUE READING HERE >>>
Key Takeaways
“Adrenal cocktails”—mixtures of orange juice, coconut water, cream of tartar, and salt—are popular on TikTok, with users claiming they provide a range of health benefits, including weight management and stress relief.But there’s no evidence to suggest these drinks provide adrenal health benefits, experts said.They may be popular due to the placebo effect, according to experts.
Terms like “stress relief” and “weight loss” abound on social media—and lately, some users have been linking these to the trend of adrenal cocktails, also known as cortisol cocktails.
These beverages contain a mix of ingredients many people keep in their refrigerators. Some on TikTok are claiming they help with a variety of health issues by supporting your adrenal glands, which have a pretty important job: “The adrenal glands rest atop the kidneys, and they are the ones that secrete the hormone cortisol,” Pratibha Rao, MD, medical director of the Adrenal Center at Cleveland Clinic, told Verywell.
Though the ingredients found in adrenal cocktails might be refreshing, they aren’t necessarily a groundbreaking cure-all. “The adrenal cocktail recipes that seem to be most popular online include a combination of orange juice, coconut water, cream of tartar, and salt,” Leah Barron, RD, LD, CPT, a dietitian at The Baseline Lifestyle Co., told Verywell. “While this drink may be a tasty way to stay hydrated, there is no clinical data to support the claim that this drink is helpful or necessary to support adrenal health.”
Though adrenal cocktails may not provide health benefits, they won’t necessarily hurt you either, Barron said. However, they can be dangerous for people with uncontrolled blood sugar and/or kidney damage, Rao explained.
Understanding Adrenal Function
Your adrenal glands are involved in many aspects of your health. “They produce hormones that help regulate essential functions, including your immune system, metabolism, blood pressure, and stress responses,” Barron explained.
“Cortisol is one of the hormones produced by the adrenal glands and often referred to as the ‘stress hormone’ because of its role in regulating stress response throughout the body. Although it is essential to managing stress responses, cortisol also plays significant roles in metabolism, suppressing inflammation, regulating blood pressure and blood sugar, and controlling your sleep-wake cycle,” Barron said.
Some people who speak about adrenal cocktails on social media say they help with a range of problems, including weight loss, anxiety, or heightened stress levels, but this isn’t the case. “There’s no truth to this,” Rao said.
What Is Adrenal Fatigue?
Fans of the drink often talk about a condition called “adrenal fatigue”—claiming that adrenal cocktails can help with it—but the condition isn’t widely recognized.
It’s important to know that ‘adrenal fatigue’ is not a diagnosis recognized by the medical community.
“[‘Adrenal fatigue’] is a term coined by a chiropractor in the ’90s to describe a cluster of vague symptoms that he was seeing in his patients. Since then, the term has been used online by influencers and alternative medicine practitioners to push their adrenal cocktail products and profit off of vulnerable people.”
Barron added that some companies have even started making adrenal cocktail supplements, “which, again, have not been proven to provide any specific benefits to the adrenal glands,” she said.
“A huge red flag when it comes to any supplement or product is when the person selling it claims that it will heal all that ails you, [and] there is no evidence to support that these supplements do what they say they do; it even says so on most of their websites with statements like, ‘These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA].’”
Why Are Adrenal Cocktails Popular?
Some people may see their symptoms improve after trying adrenal cocktails thanks to the placebo effect, experts said. The placebo effect occurs when someone experiences positive health benefits from an intervention with no therapeutic value simply because they believe the treatment will help. Placebos are often used in drug trials to test the effectiveness of emerging treatments.
“A drug has to go through such a rigorous testing process—through various phases and confirming efficacy and safety—prior to getting FDA approval; whereas these popular drinks do not need any such validation and can easily gain traction and popularity through social media,” Rao said.
Experts said they’re pretty harmless as long as you consume them in moderation (unless you have any chronic health issues that affect the kidneys and/or uncontrolled blood sugar).
The adrenal cocktail trend is a good reminder that most things that seem like an “easy fix” aren’t what they’re made out to be.
Imagine if all it took to solve your stress, fatigue, sleep issues, and other vague discomforts was a glorified electrolyte beverage. None of us would be struggling with any of those things.
What to Do If You Suspect Adrenal Issues
Though “adrenal fatigue” isn’t a recognized medical condition, some diagnosable conditions—including Addison’s disease, adrenal insufficiency, and Cushing’s syndrome—do affect the adrenal glands and may affect your hormone levels, Barron added.
But you shouldn’t assume a problem with your adrenal glands is causing your symptoms without speaking to a healthcare provider. “In the medical field, we do not endorse the term ‘adrenal fatigue,’” Rao said. “If persistent fatigue is out of the ordinary or inexplicable, the recommendation is to go to your primary care provider with your concerns.”
A healthcare provider can help guide you to the best treatment options depending on your symptoms, but it’s important not to take your care into your own hands by trying viral TikTok “treatments” or “cures.” “Please do not treat yourself and seek professional help [as soon as possible] if you are experiencing fatigue or other symptoms that are not commensurate with your current situation, [be they] physical, mental, or emotional,” Rao said.
What This Means For You
Adrenal cocktails are popular on TikTok right now. Made of a mixture of orange juice, coconut water, cream of tartar, and salt, many say they help with fatigue, weight loss, stress relief, and “adrenal fatigue.” But there are no known health benefits of adrenal cocktails—which are sometimes called cortisol cocktails because the adrenal glands secrete cortisol—according to experts. The drinks could be popular due to the placebo effect, experts said.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
National Library of Medicine: MedlinePlus. Adrenal glands.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Placebo effect.
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