Dehydroepiandrosterone

Now, the first category I'd like to talk about is specifically things that are targeted as hormonal supplements.

So most commonly, we see frequently women will come into our practice and they're currently taking Vitex or Chase Treeberry, resveratrol, or even DHEA, which is a medication or a supplement that we utilize in our practice.

However, many times women start these supplements without understanding what is the specific role that it has for them and do they actually need it? For example, if you are a woman who starts DHEA because your friend tells you, hey, I was taking DHEA and I was able to get pregnant on it, but you yourself have problems with excess testosterone or excess estrogen levels, DHEA can actually make your situation significantly worse.

The same would apply for supplements like chaste tree berry or Vitex.

For many women, they take it to decrease their prolactin levels, decrease estrogen, and increase progesterone levels.

And they can, so we can be measuring estrogen, progesterone metabolism of those hormones, and we can measure cortisol morning, midday, evening, bedtime.

And we can also get testosterone, DHEA, and other metabolites at the same time.

And so sometimes I'll use that test depending on the case and what the needs are.

But it's just mind blowing what happens when women have actual information to validate what they're experiencing.

Yeah.

DHEA is healthy.

I don't know that I would take DHEA at that level and then testosterone, but free is on the lower side.

But that's probably tied more to the SHBG than it is to taking DHEA.

I just Wonder about that.

And then IGF-1 is chronically low despite taking omnitrotin in lots of meats.

that SHGB so it would free up things to get that free testosterone up.

That's one thought that I had.

So that's an interesting thing that's happening.

The fourth hormone is DHEA.

DHEA is... sometimes a useful option for vaginal health, something called GSM or genital urinary syndrome of menopause.

And these are age-related, you know, starting around perimenopause and then beyond.

Changes to the pelvic floor, bladder, you know, and vagina and vulva.

it's no wonder that we require extra estrogen in that department.

And, you know, that's, we need it.

So some women, there are products in most countries around the world, certainly in Canada and the United States, that are DHEA, either, you know, suppositories that are for GSM.

So even though the parent's divorce was a little bit before that, this is a critical time where her brain and her ovaries we're making a connection.

And she did have some symptoms of PMOS, meaning her DHEA was a little bit on the higher side and her AMH was actually a little bit on the higher side.

So sometimes we're like, great, really high AMH.

Right, when it's too high though, it's a sign that she's not ovulating properly and there isn't good follicle recruitment, especially when we see it with signs of DHEA and very weak ovulation on her annito strips.

So that essentially was very difficult.

There's a lot of also family drama and brother and siblings, and they were struggling through some drug addiction, et cetera.

The researchers also measured endocrine markers, including soluble alpha-clotho, growth hormone, GH, insulin-like growth factor 1, IGF-1.

dehydroepiandrosterone , DHEA sulfate , follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone .

Circulating testosterone was assessed separately to examine its relationship with the same aging indicators.

Initial analyses revealed several associations involving body composition.

It was like a cream kind of thing you just rubbed in a bit every couple of days.

And there was a there's a precursor to that DHEA and he put me on that as well.

And I stayed on it for a number of months.

But I don't know.