Comments on: Benefits of DHEA Supplements & Natural Foods Sources

By: Alice Carroll

Alice Carroll — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 06:26:21 +0000

It’s great to know that DHEA cream can also help in making the skin look younger. I’m planning to start looking for anti-aging products soon because the lines under my eyes are starting to develop into actual wrinkles. I think it would be best if I start trying to prevent them from ever manifesting instead of trying to change my skin-care routine later in life.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 11:30:11 +0000

I have acute slee apnea. Is dhea good for sleep apnea?

By: Male

Male — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 04:31:08 +0000

I am a male, now in my 60’s, and I take 25 mg every other day. I’ve never had my dhea levels tested but it’s always seemed to be an important supplement. Several years ago I moved up to 25 mg every other day from 5 mg every day. I had stayed with the 5 mg for over ten years I think. When I started with the 5 mg, I experimented going off it and back on, a few times. It always passed the test of giving me more energy and better apparent hormones. By the time I went to 25 mg every other day, I found that I can’t do without it. Recently, I conducted another experiment and went without it for maybe two weeks. Serious lethargy put me right back on it.

I know of no other likely side effects to taking dhea (besides what I mentioned), .. well … consider: Late in the period when I was only taking 5 mg, I had my testosterone tested for the only time in my life and I found it was very high but within the good range. As if it hadn’t ever gone down at all from youth – not what I was expecting to find, yet not totally surprising. I did exercise a very lot and eat the good foods. The only other possible side effects I can think of besides those mentioned (in my opinion) is a very coarse beard (bad) and very tough fingernails and toenails (good). I’ve always had strong hairs and good nails, nevertheless, I am suspicious.

The only other hormone I have taken is melatonin (although vitamin D probably counts too). I have long taken melatonin (the lowest dose, mcg’s never mg’s), well before dhea because of the dramatic desperately needed help (not just sleep) it gave me from the start. I am definitely atypical, unusual; nevertheless, I hope my experiences are informative.

I have no doubt that a great many of us use the aforementioned supplements as we get older (what Senator Hatch did was incredibly important to me) even if very few talk about it. Taking hormones should only be done with great care and need, so it’s too bad there aren’t ten times as many studies on these two major ones as there are. Even so, it is as complex a study as could be, so final answers are for the distant future.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 05:52:30 +0000

Maddy F., I tried DHEA in pill form as well. My DHEA levels were extremely low (like 1) for a long time. My docs advised me to supplement with oral DHEA which I tried. But every time I took it I had bad reactions even taking low doses like you at 2.5 mg. So I quit as well. But, just recently I started using a DHEA cream, not the full recommended dose but just a small amount and have had a way better experience with it! I’ve been watching for facial hair, which has not increased and have not had any major acne outbreaks. I do believe it is helping with energy and mood. I’m still working on adjusting the dosage. I am using a little more at a time to see if I can find an optimal dose. So far so good. I am also taking breaks to see how that affects me.

By: S

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 20:08:36 +0000

In reply to T. T, As the article suggests, "But eating tofu, tempeh, edamame, or any other food source of soy will not work. As with the yams, the processes in the laboratory are a far cry from the human digestive system. We can’t make this hormone by eating soy." So, to answer you, NO, no one can increase DHEA in their body by consuming soy and any type of soy.

By: Maddy F.

Maddy F. — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 09:14:57 +0000

I am a woman in mid-life (not yet menopausal) whose DHEA blood test (and saliva test) scores have been extremely low for years, well below the normal range, I am now at the level (on one of the charts that I received with my lab test results) of the average 90-year-old woman. I am often very physically tired and unmotivated, no matter what I do or try.
My (now-former) endocrinologist had no advice or concern regarding my low DHEA scores, so, on my own behalf, I looked into taking a very small amount of over-the-counter DHEA to see if that would boost my levels and give me some energy.
I did a lot of online research on it first and collected opinions and testimonials from across the spectrum, from doctors, fitness and weightlifting sites, published scientific papers.
Even though my endocrinologist had said that taking 50 mg of DHEA a day probably wouldn’t help me but it probably wouldn’t harm me (that was all he would tell me about it), I also checked with my gynecologist and asked her if it would be okay for me to take a small amount of DHEA, and if she’d help me test my levels before and after supplementing with a small amount, and she said that it was fine for me to give it a try and she would help me monitor it.
I found a 5 (five, not fifty!) milligram DHEA tablet that was manufactured by a supplement company with a good reputation (I think it was Pure Encapsulations, but it may have been another of those brands that sell mainly in practitioners’ offices but that you can get on Amazon). I cut it in half, so I was taking just 2.5 mg a day. (That is a very small amount when it comes to DHEA dosages.)
I took it for ONE WEEK, and I started to grow beardy male-type of facial hair, which I had never had before in my life. I am naturally blonde, with fine thin hair, I’ve never had any noticeable facial hair — until the DHEA experiment. Even in that short of a time period, the beardy growth got worse day by day, my facial pores were getting noticeably larger, my skin was getting oilier, my forehead developed big acne pimples, it was a mess. I stopped taking the DHEA.
I saw the gynecologist a month later and I explained to her what had happened, and why I’d stopped taking the DHEA after just one week. I showed her the BEARDY HAIR ON MY FACE THAT WAS STILL COARSE, THICK, AND GROWING ON MY CHIN AND UPPER LIP. She could feel it and see it. She agreed with me that my face had not had the beardy hair before that time. She agreed with me that the DHEA had caused this to happen, since it was the only new thing that I had introduced into my life. She said that it could take 6 months before my enlarged pores, excess oil, forehead acne, beardy facial hair, etc. calmed down and my skin returned to how it had been before. She went through the options for female facial hair removal with me, and we decided that using an electric razor on an as-needed basis would be the easiest method for me.
About a month after that, I saw the (former) endocrinologist for my regularly-scheduled visit with him, and I told him about how the DHEA experiment had gone (not that he was actually interested, but I thought I should at least keep him and my endocrinology medical records up to date, since this was a *hormone* supplement that I’d tried). He told me that I was wrong. He said it was scientifically IMPOSSIBLE that only taking 2.5 mg of DHEA for one week would cause beardy hair growth on a woman. He told me that I was imagining it. He said he didn’t see anything different with my facial skin. He said it would take far higher doses and far longer treatment times before a woman might experience any masculinization from DHEA.
Well, he was wrong.
I realize that his medical education had told him that it would be impossible, but I am an intelligent, careful, thoughtful, observant person, and this is what really happened, in real life, to me.
And my gynecologist agreed with me. My mother agreed with me. A saleswoman (a stranger to me) at a department store makeup counter actually mentioned my beardy facial hair when I was buying a product from her! You could SEE on my face the negative effect the brief DHEA trial had had on my facial skin. (As a woman in her mid-40s, it had been years since I had had very-oily facial skin, visibly-enlarged facial pores, or major clusters of acne pimples on my forehead, prior to the DHEA experiment. And I’d never before had male-type beardy facial hair growth.)
This year I got the chance to change endocrinologists, and my new one listened respectfully to my story about the DHEA and acted like it was entirely possible that this had happened to me, which I appreciated.
A couple of years have passed since my one-week DHEA trial. My skin isn’t oily anymore, I don’t have acne pimples anymore, but — I still have problems with the beardy hair and scaly, rough-feeling skin on my upper lip and chin. I still have to shave the beardy facial hair off with an electric razor once in a while. It’s certainly not as bad as it was right after the DHEA trial, but it has NOT returned to my “normal”, soft, no-beard facial skin.
I discovered that a few supplements that had never bothered me before the DHEA trial now noticeably make the male-type facial hair grow faster, thicker, and darker (such as biotin, vitamin B5, silica, others), so I have stopped taking them (or reduced the amount I take to a small sliver of a tablet, in the case of B5).
Using Progesterone cream (Pro-gest, over-the-counter) for the last 14 days of my cycle seems to help calm down the beardy hair and rough, large-pored facial skin.
I still have dramatically-low DHEA blood test scores. I want to find out what is causing my DHEA to be so low. I want to get some energy back, some oomph, some motivation. My elderly relatives in their late 70s have more energy than I do. (Also, a bone scan showed that I have osteopenia that is near to osteoporosis, even though I’m still menstruating and I live quite healthfully, and this can be related to low DHEA.) But I will never take DHEA as a supplement again.
—–
I might be an especially sensitive person when it comes to medicines and supplements, but it is obvious from my experience that DHEA can be converted quite easily into “male” sorts of hormones in the body, testosterone, whatever.
It can work quite quickly, and it can have a noticeable effect at very low amounts.
Therefore, I would caution anyone who wants to try it to research it carefully first, to start with a LOW dose (like 5 mg or less, not 25, not 50!), to realize that it’s a powerful hormone, and to be aware that it can have unwelcome and long-lasting masculinizing effects on some women.

By: T

Wed, 19 Apr 2017 06:30:53 +0000

If it isn’t in wild yams but something in wild yams is used to make it does the same apply to soybeans? Can one naturally increase dhea in their body by consuming much soy, and any type of soy, or is there just something in soybeans used to make the product for sale?