Soldiers may also elect not to wear a combat patch. Controversies have arisen in recent years over brigade commanders' decisions to ban combat patches in certain situations. This has been done in an effort to make new recruits, who didn't have the patches, feel less excluded.
Cortisol functions to reduce inflammation in the body, which is good, but over time, these efforts to reduce inflammation also suppress the immune system. Chronic inflammation, caused by lifestyle factors such as poor diet and stress, helps to keep cortisol levels soaring, wreaking havoc on the immune system.
Stress impacts both the adrenal hormone pathway and the thyroid hormone pathway. Stress can cause inflammation in the brain/ hypothalamus, stress can raise cortisol levels that may inhibit or alter the metabolic pathway of active thyroid hormone (T3), or some other mechanism may be at play.