Today I’m going to talk about DHEA, which is dehydroepiandrosterone.
Forget that, right? DHEA. It is a master hormone, and here at the clinic we do bioidentical hormone replacement for people. So DHEA is a hormone that I’m frequently asked about and that we frequently prescribe to our clients here.
DHEA is available over-the-counter, that’s not really something I recommend, but it is available over-the-counter. The way that I prescribe it is in a sustained release form. So, people take it once in the morning and it will last that 24 hours for them.
I have a handful of patients that it creates some sleepiness for, so they’ve switched to taking it at nighttime, and because I write for the sustained release formula, it works out well for them. It’s sustaining them throughout the 24-hour timeframe.
I use a compounding pharmacy for my DHEA, so for me, this is definitely more of a prescription than just an over-the-counter nutritional aid. So, in your sex hormone cascade, everything starts with cholesterol.
So, if we drive people’s cholesterol down too low, then they’re not going to be able to make their sex hormones, so that’s an important point for me. Um, so everything starts with cholesterol and then it goes to DHEA, and then eventually to testosterone and estradiol, which is the main estrogen that the human body makes.
