POMC and Sepsis: The increase in cortisol with exogenous ACTH inversely related to baseline cortisol/ACTH ratio or ACTH (P = 0.01) and etomidate (P = 0.05) and directly to HDL-cholesterol (P = 0.03), but not to sepsis, baseline cholesterol, and cortisol (to 11β-deoxycortisol ratio).