SHT - DHEA for anti-ageing

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News : One Thread

ET Solving an age-old problem

(Filed: 30/05/2001)

DHEA is being heralded as a wonder hormone, capable of promoting energy, improving libido and countering weight gain. Julia Pascal reports

CAN we beat ageing with DHEA? The claims for this "magic" hormone - which include increased sex drive and skin improvements - are extraordinary. Some studies show that DHEA has a positive effect on depressed patients.

DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is synthesised in the adrenal glands and sent to the ovaries and testes: levels usually peak around the age of 25. But some doctors believe that by artificially boosting levels the hormone's health and youth-promoting effects can be maximised through the middle years and into old age.

The potential youth-promoting effects of DHEA are less well publicised than other hormones such as oestrogen. However, tests on mice demonstrated that those bred for obesity did not become obese when given DHEA, those bred for breast cancer did not develop the disease, and those that were old acquired glossier fur. Trials of the hormone on elderly patients showed that the hormone improved memory and helped prevent muscle wasting, weakness and trembling.

One of the few practitioners specialising in anti-ageing, nutrition and dermacosmotology in London is the French practitioner Dr Daniel Sister. He has private practices in Paris, Los Angeles, and London and has published four books on anti-ageing and weight loss in America and France.

A low libido is one of the most common complaints of his women patients and he says DHEA produces remarkable improvements in sexual drive. "It will never make an old person young but it does have a strong effect on increasing energy levels, improving sleep, reducing fat and balancing the whole body." Taking DHEA, says Dr Sister, could help those in their fifties attain peak condition, countering the weight gain that comes as their metabolism slows down and hormone levels drop.

Despite claims that DHEA might create other problems, Dr Sister believes DHEA is harmless and that "30 years of study have shown no health dangers".

DHEA is only part of the human hormone picture. As we age, levels of human growth hormone (HGH) decrease. Dr Sister examines each patient's hormone levels and offers treatments based on the need for an HGH "releaser" - a concentrated mix of the amino-acids arganin, methionine and lysine.

His work is of particular interest to women on the verge of menopause. Most approach their GP wondering whether or not to take hormone replacement therapy. If there are no contra-indications, most will be offered HRT as a way of preventing osteoporosis. However, finding the method that suits each individual can take years. The NHS does not offer blood tests that measure hormone levels, and if one pill produces headaches or has a bloating effect, another is prescribed until the "correct" one is found.

I found Dr Sister's individual approach far preferable. I tried his human growth hormone releaser for three months, lost weight and, according to my friends, looked healthier. My nails strengthened, my hair growth improved and my occasional hot flush disappeared.

Dr Sister's treatment stimulates the body to release its own hormones. He claims that his human growth hormone releasers - what he calls "cosmetic surgery in powder" - cause fine lines to disappear, deeper wrinkles to recede and facial fat to decrease. Even brown ageing spots are said to disappear.

Together, HGH releaser and DHEA may prove an important option in enhancing the lives of middle-aged and elderly people. DHEA can be bought on the internet and in health shops. But such supplements must be linked to individual characteristics and changing needs. Taking one without looking at your whole metabolic and hormonal picture is like putting sticking plaster on a major wound.

Daniel Sister, RejuvenAge Medical Clinic, 48 Harley Street, London WlH 9PU. Telephone 0207 323 1388, fax 0207 323 1387 or www.rejuvenAge.net. A consultation costs £100

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Answers

ET - 14 December 1996

How to live to 120

James Langton talks to the American professor of medicine who claims that new 'superhormones' can nearly double your life expectancy

DR WILLIAM Regelson is a man who has learnt to speak in headlines. And the biggest and boldest is as follows: "Ageing is a disease. Therefore it can be cured."

A growing number of Americans are listening to his message. Perhaps this is hardly surprising. "Grow Younger at Any Age" promises the cover of his latest book. "Add Decades to Your Life. Invigorate Your Sex Life. Maintain Vigor, Health and Energy into your 80s, 90s, even 100s".

This is not a come-on from the late 20th century's equivalent of an Old West snake-oil salesman. Dr Regelson is Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia and one of the leading researchers into ageing for over 20 years. He is also a Peter Pan for a world which apparently wishes to stay forever young.

His elixirs of life are the so-called "superhormones", a chemical clan which includes melatonin, oestrogen, testosterone and progesterone. The most notorious of all is dehydroepiandrosterone, more comfortably abbreviated to DHEA. Still to come is pregnenolone, the subject of some of the most ambitious claims.

All are produced naturally in the body; DHEA in the adrenal gland and brain, melatonin in the pineal, pregnenolone in the brain and testosterone in the male and female reproductive organs respectively. As we grow older, the level of these hormones in our bodies begins to decline. Or rather, as Dr Regelson and his supporters suggest, as our body shuts down hormone production, so we begin to grow old.

The remedy, then, is simple. Like an empty petrol tank, the body just needs topping up. Once hormone levels are restored to those of our twenties, men and women in their fifties begin to feel 30 years younger. Freed from the ravages of age, many - maybe most - of us can expect our bodies to run on to the end of their natural lifespan, which may, in fact, be much longer than 120 years.

At least 20 million Americans are now believed to be taking hormone supplements. The growth in the market has been sudden and explosive. Five years ago, the price of a kilo of pure synthetic melatonin was steady at $24. The cost today is around $4,000. Bottles of DHEA and melatonin tablets can be bought without a doctor's prescription from health-food stores in any major American city.

Dr Regelson is the living advocate of superhormones. He has taken DHEA for the past 11 years; his wife Sylvia, "my guinea pig", for 14. He is now 71 and, it has to be said, looks good. If you had to guess his age, you might think late fifties.

He feels good, too, he says: plenty of energy as he rips through a large plate of roast beef during the lunch interval of a New York conference on ageing, while recounting details of his night on the town the previous evening.

If he is right, Dr Regelson has another 50 years on this planet. Put it another way: he still has half a century before his point is proved. Maybe he is no more than the old joke of the man who falls from the top of the Empire State Building, shouting to the occupants of each floor as he hurtles past: "So far, so good!"

"Can I wait that long?" he asks. The question is rhetorical. "Let me give you the bottom line. Ageing is a disease. It is due to the decline of reproductive hormones and what you have to do is replace them. You are not going to have immortality, but you may lead a more youthful life and avoid a degree of debility and dependency.

"We think that the limit of human life is around 120, because that's how long the oldest people have reached. In the future we may be able to extend this. That's probably a long way off. But 120? Well, I'll take that."

So would most people. Dr Regelson's latest book, The Superhormone Promise and, before that, The Melatonin Miracle have both been bestsellers, converting tens of thousands to the cause.

His message has particular appeal to the baby-boom generation, now entering their fifties. As Dr Regelson points out: "They're beginning to realise that just to exercise, to watch their weight, isn't good enough. That not to smoke is of limited value."

What he means is that they like the idea of having only lived half their lives.

The first half of The Superhormone Promise is a shameless promotion of his fountain of youth. The second is a detailed academic analysis of the role of superhormones. Even if most of his readers will only understand the former, they cannot help but be blinded by the science of the latter.

Put simply, this theory of ageing holds that our bodies begin to deteriorate once we have passed the useful time for reproduction. In our late forties or early fifties, the pineal gland begins to cuts its production of melatonin, the controlling mechanism of many other hormones. Most of these hold back the onset of ageing. Many protect our bodies from diseases like cancers. Yet by our forties, our levels of DHEA, for example, have declined by half. When they go, we go.

But, says Dr Regelson, being old and ageing need not be the same thing. He makes almost miraculous claims for many superhormones. Each has a long list of attributes. DHEA "restores libido, tames stress, fights cancer, prevents heart disease, rejuvenates the immune system".

Melatonin has long been used as an aid to sleep. Pregnenolone, just beginning to appear in the commercial market, can allegedly enhance memory, improve concentration, fight mental fatigue and relieve arthritis. And since these hormones already exist in our bodies, what harm can come of taking them?

The answer is that we do not know. Dr Regelson believes that superhormones are benign. But even he admits that they can be abused. DHEA is being taken as a muscle-builder by many young men. It can cause facial hair in women and perhaps liver damage in both sexes. He would like to see superhormones available only after a proper consultation and tests.

American doctors are forbidden from prescribing them by the American Medical Association, largely because so little is known about their long-term effects. Yet here is the Catch-22: DHEA is untested by the Federal Drug Administration because, as a basic hormone, it cannot be patented, and is thus ignored by the major pharmaceutical companies.

But like vitamins, various bottles and creams are widely sold over the counter. If the market continues to grow at its present rate, it is something that the US authorities will not be able to ignore for much longer.

In Britain and most of Europe, the position is even more conservative. DHEA is available only on prescription, yet is almost certainly easily obtainable through mail order. Harrods was recently discovered to have been mistakenly selling it as food supplement. The company rapidly removed it from the shelves when this was pointed out.

Those who have been converted to superhormones now support them with an almost religious fervour, evident from endorsements at the front of the book. "I haven't felt this way in decades," says a 44-year-old lawyer on DHEA. Steven, 72, is: "Planning for two to three careers down the road. I expect to be very active in my eighties and nineties, so why not in my hundreds?" A middle-aged biochemist writes that he feels: "Like I'm 20 again. Sex is better than ever!"

One of the few people Dr Regelson has met who has not apparently embraced his vision was an American Indian who told him that he had been "taught to leave the world the way he found it. And over-population is destroying the world."

A lifespan of six score years may yet prove to be a mixed blessing. "It will have a profound effect on the nuclear family," Regelson points out. "Do you really, suddenly, want to spend another 30 to 50 years with the same man or woman? A lot of what holds couples together is 'mom and popism'."

How will we live in a world where family life may leave us with nearly a century still to fill? What religious and moral conflicts await over birth control. How do we construct a society of old people?

"I am not going to sit around fretting about these social issues,' says Dr Regelson. "Society is simply going to have to face them." For those of us who may have to answer personally not just to our grandchildren but our great-great-grandchildren, it may not seem so simple.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001


About DHEA

DHEA

Anti-Aging Supplement - Exciting new research measures DHEA anti-aging effect. Can DHEA do more than potentially boost the immune system? From HealthSurfing.com.

Autoimmunity: The Female Connection A thoroughly technical review of the role of DHEA in hormonal activity in lupus. By Joan T. Merrill, MD, Anca R. Dinu, MD, Robert G. Lahita, MD, PhD.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) - (DHEA) is an old drug with potentially important antilupus properties. Read all about it from eminent lupus researcher, Daniel Wallace, MD.

DHEA and Lupus - Leave it on the shelf, according to this author. By Judith Horstman. On the Arthritis Foundation site.

DHEA Caution - For older women, the potential risks of taking DHEA may outweigh the known benefits. From Health News of the NEJM.

DHEA? Hot on Hormones? - From the Nutrition Reporter. Get another viewpoint on this increasingly popular treatment.

Does DHEA Live Up to the Hype? - Q&A from Mayo Clinic Health Oasis. A frank discussion of the recent claims about DHEA. Is is a wonder drug?

New Drug Helps Women With Lupus - Early results of clinical trial discussed. From Doctor's Guide.

Scientific Verdict Still Out - Long-term benefits are still not known. Don't take DHEA without reading this article. From JAMA Medical News & Perspectives.

Stanford Study on treatment of Lupus with DHEA - University study shows that patients feel better on DHEA even when they reduce their prednisone dose.

Update on DHEA Research at Stanford University - From another viewpoint, how the Stanford University Study may show how DHEA can alleviate lupus symptoms and improve quality of life.

1 2 Next

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ