HEALTH

DHEA: The Mother Hormone,

The

Anti-Aging Hormone
By: Doctor Carlos A. Roman Photos: Jim Rodriguez

Study after study conrms that DHEA levels are an excellent predictor of age related health problems.
DHEA is often called the mother hormone because its the precursor for the other adrenal hormones, including all the adrenal steroids, such as the stress hormone cortisol, and all sex hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Of all the biomarkers for again, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is perhaps the most telling. The level of DHEA, in turn, is probably the most rapidly declining hormone as we age, starting in our midtwenties. The lower your DHEA, the more likely you are to have the degenerative diseases of accelerate aging: atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, and lowered immunity. To put it more bluntly, the lower your DHEA, the more likely you are to die from an age- related disease. Conversely high levels of DHEA may protect you from or even reverse precisely the same diseases. The higher your DHEA level, the better you feel, with a greater sense of overall well-being and a better ability to deal with emotional and physical stress.

DHEA is the most abundant hormone in your body ordinarily you make about 25 to 30 mg of it every day. If your DHEA production drops, so does your production of all the other related hormones. Your adrenal glands manufacture DHEA from cholesterol (you also make very small amounts of DHEA in your testes or ovaries) . Yes, thats the same cholesterol that consensus medicine insists is a dangerous substance that has no business being in your blood. Yet if your blood levels of cholesterol are inadequate your body doesnt have the essential raw material to make the crucial hormone thats the precursor for more than forty other critical adrenal hormones. The cascade of hormone production is seriously disrupted, with predictably serious consequences for your health. Almost every patient Ive given DHEA to, young or old, has shown dramatic improvement as soon as his or her DHEA level was restored to an optimal level. Your levels of DHEA peak when youre between twenty and twentyve. After that, the amount of DHEA you produce declines
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naturally at the rate of about 2 percent a year. That means that by the time youre forty or so , youre making only about half the DHEA you did at age twenty. At age sixtyfive, youre down to only about 10 to 20 percent of your peak. At age eighty, youre making only about 5 percent of your peak. In general women make about 10 to 20 percent less DHEA than men: their rate of production still declines at the same 2 percent a year.

DHEA AND HEART DISEASE

Low DHEA is a much better predictor than high cholesterol or heart attack, yet your doctor is very unlikely to test your DHEA level. In fact your doctor will probably treat your high cholesterol with a statin drug that works by preventing the manufacture of cholesterol and thereby further reduces your production of DHEA. Exactly the opposite approach is far better. Taking DHEA supplements will also lower your LDL cholesterol, but without the side effects of statin drugs. At the same time, the DHEA will lower your chances of having a dangerous blood clot. Of course, youll also be enjoying all the other benefits of increased DHEA levels. Theres a definite correlation between DHEA levels and coronary artery disease. To give just one example, a particularly interesting study of patients about to have coronary bypass operations showed that the higher their DHEA, the less severe was their coronary artery disease.

ENHANCING IMMUNITY WITH DHEA

A twenty-year-old can quickly shake off a cold or flu that would keep a sixty-year-old sick for a week. As you age, your immune system gets weaker, making you more susceptible to illness and infection. Your aging immune system also makes you more susceptible to degenerative diseases such as atherosclerosis and autoimmune diseases. If you could restore your immune system to its youthful level, wouldnt you? You can with DHEA. This amazing hormone has been shown to increase the production of antibodies and increase the activity of infection-fighting immune cells such as monocytes and natural killer cells. In 1997, a careful study of healthy older men showed just how well DHEA enhances immunity. The test subjects took 50 mg of DHEA a day for twenty weeks. At the end of that time, all the men showed remarkable increases in immune components in the blood. Most notably, their levels of white blood cells, called monocytes increased on average by 45 percent. I see the evidence for the immune-enhancing function of DHEA every day in my patients. At the Clinica Integral de Medicina Complementaria we prescribe it for all patients with impaired immunity. Its particularly effective for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or with autoimmune ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Virtually all of these patients have surprisingly low levels of DHEA; after they have been on DHEA for just a few weeks. I see a strong improvement in their overall immune function. The patients feel much better, symptoms such as depression and fatigue are usually much improved.

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CANCER AND DHEA
Its not a cure, but DHEA could be something even better a supplement that prevents cancer from occurring. Animal studies show that DHEA prevents cancers of the breast, colon, liver, lungs, prostate, lymphatic system, and skin. I first learned about using DHEA for any medical purpose in the 1970s, when alternative oncologists in Germany began using it successfully with their cancer patients. Your chances of getting cancer rise as your DHEA levels fall-people with bladder cancer and women with breast cancer almost always have much lower than normal DHEA levels. All the evidence points toward a strong role for DHEA as a cancer preventive, even if the definitive studies have yet to be done. One known exception: A man at risk for prostate cancer, or one who already has it; needs to be very cautious about using DHEA. I believe he can still benefit from this helpful hormone, but he needs to be monitored carefully by a physician. DHEA can increase testosterone production, which in turn could feed prostate cancer. To use DHEA safely, he needs to have frequent PSA blood test to monitor his risk of prostate cancer. A useful alternative here is 7-keto DHEA, a variation that leads to the development of the adrenal hormones but not testosterone ( or other sex hormones ) production.

STRONGER BONES WITH DHEA

DHEA not only can stop osteoporosis, it can reverse it. This is how it works: DHEA increases the activity of bone-building cells called osteoblasts and inhibits the activity of bone destroying cells called osteoclasts. People with osteoporosis generally have much lower levels of DHEA than people who dont. Similarly, among older adults, the people with the highest DHEA levels have the densest bones. We know from animal studies that DHEA supplements can actually restore lost bone density. Can it do the same for you? I think it can, which is why I use DHEA supplements to create optimal blood levels for all my patients male and female who are at risk for osteoporosis.

TAKING DHEA
All the above strongly suggests that you should be aware of your DHEA level and supplement it if its low. I have found no problems when trying to restore the blood levels of my patients to what is optimal for a thirty-year-old; in older patients, the goal is to achieve the level of someone in his or her twenties or thirties. For women, thats ideally between 200 and 300 units; for men, between 300 and 400.

Dr. Carlos A. Roman

He is a specialist in complementary medicine and have focused his practice on nutritional medicine and metabolic lesios. For further information you can contact him by e-mail: c a r l o s ro man9@yahoo.com or call him to his clinic in San Jose (506) 2257-2493
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