DHEA Cuts Belly Fat

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found the prohormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) reduced abdominal fat and accompanying risk for type 2 diabetes that often occurs with age.

Most people gain abdominal fat in the midsection as they age. Scientists have linked this to reduced production of the prohormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).

Blood levels of DHEA peak between the age of 18-25, when we are “in our prime”, and then decline quite rapidly after 25. DHEA is a base for 50 hormones we produce.

By age 70, we have only about 20 percent of the DHEA levels in the body we had at age 25.  DHEA level has been associated with many of the harmful effects of aging.

Dennis T. Villareal, M.D., and John O. Holloszy, M.D., set out to examine whether complications of aging could be reversed if DHEA levels in elderly people were returned to the levels of their youth.

"Earlier human studies indicated DHEA supplementation improved bone density and a sense of well-being," Villareal says. "In this study, we wanted to test whether our findings in the rat studies would hold true in people. We investigated whether DHEA could reverse some of the metabolic complications of aging if DHEA levels in elderly people were returned to the levels of their youth."

The study included 56 people with an average age of 71. For six months, half of the group was randomly assigned to receive a placebo while the other half received 50 milligrams of DHEA daily.

Using highly sensitive MRI measurements of the amount of abdominal fat, the researchers found that compared with placebo, DHEA supplementation resulted in a decrease in visceral fat (within the abdomen) of 10.2 percent in the women and 7.4 percent in the men.

DHEA therapy also resulted in a decrease in subcutaneous abdominal fat (below the skin surface) averaging 6 percent in both the women and the men. The researchers found no adverse effects from DHEA therapy.

"Among the different fat stores, visceral [abdominal] fat is specifically considered potent and metabolically active because its blood drains directly to the liver," the authors say. "Fatty acids from visceral fat get deposited in the liver and other organs and then mediate the decrease in insulin action that leads to an increased risk for diabetes."

In addition, patients receiving DHEA showed an improvement in insulin action. This shows a protective effect of DHEA against insulin resistance caused by a high-fat diet and the natural decrease in insulin responsiveness that occurs with older age.

DHEA increased serum testosterone levels in women, but not in men. It increased estradiol and IGF-1 levels in both sexes. (DHEA is, in fact, a forerunner of testosterone and estrogens.)

There were no significant side effects of DHEA supplementation. In particular, prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in the men were unchanged - 1.7 ng/mL at baseline and 1.6 ng/mL after 6 months. In the placebo group, PSA levels were 1.4 ng/mL at baseline and 1.8 ng/mL 6 months later.

Recent medical research shows why DHEA is best delivered to the body as a transdermal cream not as a pill. Why? Because orally ingested DHEA is destroyed by the liver. The liver filters most of it from the blood before it can do any good. What does get into the bloodstream is DHEA sulphate not DHEA.

The human body converts most DHEA into other hormones in the skin. So bio-identical transdermal DHEA, Twist 25 DHEA cream, provides what the body produces naturally where we use it, in the skin.