DHEA & Pregnenolone
October 15, 2000
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© Life Enhancement 2000

DHEA & Pregnenolone

The Next Waves in Anti-aging Hormone Replacement

In case you hadn't noticed, anti-aging medicine has recently leaped into the mainstream with both feet. Melatonin, for example, is everywhere, from the covers of national newsmagazines to the New York Times bestseller list to your local drug store.

Coming up quickly behind melatonin is another hormone, dehydroepiandrosterone, better known as DHEA. Virtually unknown to most physicians except as an obscure link in the corticosteroid metabolic chain, recent studies in humans have caused some prominent physicians and researchers to hail DHEA as being something akin to the "Fountain of Youth." While this is almost certainly an overstatement, considerable evidence suggests that taking supplemental DHEA may have important health benefits, including enhanced immune function, decreased risk of heart disease and cancer, and improved regulation of blood sugar, not to mention increased longevity.

A third hormone, pregnenolone, which is just beginning to appear on the medical horizon and has not yet hit the popular press, seems destined to become a worthy companion to melatonin and DHEA. Like DHEA, pregnenolone occupies a central position in corticosteroid biosynthesis, but also like DHEA, it is much more. Scientific studies performed during the 1940s and 1950s showed that pregnenolone had significant therapeutic benefits for people with rheumatoid arthritis and a safe and natural anti-inflammatory agent. The results of recent studies suggest that pregnenolone may also be the most powerful intelligence enhancer ever found.

We picked up on pregnenolone in 1992 and then included a chapter on it in Smart Drugs II: The Next Generation. At that time, it seemed to be an extrodinary tool for cognition enhancement and, now, even more so. As far as we know, that chapter was the first popular introduction of pregnenolone.

Aging Biomarkers

In addition to being indigenous to the human body, melatonin, DHEA, and pregnenolone all have something else in common. They all peak during youth and then begin a long slow decline with age. For this reason, they are often considered "biomarkers" of aging. Like counting the rings on a tree, this means that by measuring the level of these markers at any given point during a person’s lifetime, it is often possible to make an educated guess as to the person’s age. Other hormones that decline with age are growth hormone (GH), estrogen, and testosterone.

The theory S increasingly backed up by scientific evidence S is that restoring these hormones to their youthful levels minimizes, or even eliminates, the aging effects associated with their decline. The best-known example of hormone replacement therapy, of course, is estrogen (and progesterone) replacement in menopausal women to prevent heart disease and osteoporosis, which rise precipitously once the ovaries go into retirement. Recently, it has been shown that replacing GH in elderly individuals can also produce remarkable age-reversing changes, including increased lean muscle mass, reduced adipose tissue, stronger bones, and thicker skin.¹

DHEA and Aging

Like pregnenolone, DHEA decreases precipitously with age in a linear fashion in both men and women. The daily production of DHEA drops from about 30 mg at age 20 to less than 6 mg at age 80. In some people, DHEA levels decline 95% during their lifetime S the largest decline of an important biochemical yet documented.²

In animal studies, DHEA has extended rodent lifespans up to 50%. Dr. Arthur Schwartz, a leading DHEA researcher from Temple University, has reported that DHEA-treated mice not only lived longer, they looked younger, too. The graying, coarse-haired controls can easily be distinguished from the sleek, black-haired, DHEA-treated animals.

DHEA levels have been directly correlated with mortality (the probability of dying) in humans. In a 12-year study of over 240 men aged 50 to 79 years, researchers found that DHEA levels were inversely correlated with mortality from all causes. This finding suggests that DHEA level measurements can become a standard diagnostic predictor of disease, mortality and lifespan. Furthermore, if animal tests hold true for humans, supplemental DHEA may help prevent disease, reduce mortality, and extend lifespan.

References

1.Rudman D, Axel MD, Hoskote S, et al. Effects of human growth hormone in men over 60 years old. N Engl J Med. 1990;323:1-5.

2.Birkenhager-Gillesse EG, Derksen J, Lagaay AM. Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) in the oldest old -- aged 85 and over. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1994;719:543-552.

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