The most apparent is that single measures of absolute concentrations of salivary cortisol, for most health - related variables, seldom give
significant findings; deviation measures, in terms of diurnal deviations and / or laboratory stress tests seem to be
more strongly and consistently associated with a number of factors, such as Socioeconomic Status (SES), psychological characteristics, biological variables in terms of overweight and abdominal fat
accumulation, and mental and somatic disease.