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.