DHEA Study PART 2

Tonyk

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How many lives might be lost?

The two-year study used to vilify DHEA only had 87 male participants, with one-third of the subjects receiving placebo. Based on this one study, conventional doctors are calling for DHEA to be removed from the marketplace and turned into a prescription drug. There were no adverse effects reported during this study.

Overlooked by the media are the hundreds of studies showing significant benefits to those who maintain higher DHEA or testosterone blood levels. For example, in a larger study involving 1,700 aging males carried out over nine-years, those with the lowest levels of DHEA were 60% more likely to develop coronary artery disease.6

About one million people die from a vascular-related disease each year. Compelling evidence indicates that many of these deaths could be prevented if aging men maintained their DHEA and testosterone in more youthful ranges. If DHEA-testosterone reduced these deaths by only 20%, then about 200,000 American lives could be saved each year.

Don’t Be a Victim of Drug Company Propaganda

In response to this flawed study, conventional doctors are calling for the FDA to regulate DHEA as a prescription drug. Despite this study showing no adverse effects from DHEA or testosterone, the rationale is that people are being “ripped off” when they are sold these hormones for anti-aging purposes. This drastic conclusion flies in the face of hundreds of published studies validating the anti-aging benefits in response to DHEA and testosterone restoration.

There is little subtlety in what these mainstream doctors are really trying to accomplish. They make it clear that based on this one study, prescription “bisphosphonate” drugs would re-build bone better than natural hormone replacement. While bisphosphonate drugs have a role in preventing cancer metastasis to the bone, they are very expensive and cause serious side effects in some people. DHEA, on the other hand, is so cheap it is difficult to credibly claim that anyone is being “ripped off” when buying it, as one doctor was quoted as stating.

It is in the economic interest of the pharmaceutical industry to see restrictions placed on DHEA and testosterone as there would be a surge of age-related diseases if free access to these hormones were to be denied. This increase in age-related disease would directly correlate with the widespread deficiencies of DHEA and testosterone that would occur if consumer access to these hormones was impeded by governmental edict.

Financial Conflicts of Interest

Some of the authors of the flawed study on DHEA and testosterone have connections to the pharmaceutical industry, and drug money lobbyists can heavily influence how these studies are designed.

The doctor who most viciously attacked DHEA, stating that consumers were being “ripped-off” when buying it, admitted to receiving consulting fees and/or grants from drug companies that include Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, and Duocort.7

While all these companies sell drugs whose sales would be adversely affected if more people used DHEA, the Duocort pharmaceutical company’s website specifically states that it is developing drugs aimed at “chronic adrenal hormone replacement therapy.” DHEA is synthesized primarily in the adrenal glands. DHEA is used by aging people because after age 30, there is a chronic deficiency in adrenal DHEA production.

While Duocort’s public focus is on developing long-acting glucocorticoid drugs to treat adrenal insufficiency, it seems more than a coincidence that the most vocal critic of DHEA supplements has received consulting fees from a company whose website states:

“Treatment of adrenal insufficiency involves replacing, or substituting, the hormones that the adrenal glands are not making.”

Based on conventional medicine’s logic, it is alright to replace hormones (like DHEA) the adrenal glands are not making as long as the replacement is a patented prescription drug. The news media totally overlooked these financial conflicts of interest when regurgitating the anti-DHEA propaganda of doctors on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry.

Conclusion

In response to a plethora of positive studies linking higher DHEA levels to lower degenerative disease risk,8-33 DHEA has become an enormously popular low cost dietary supplement. The use of testosterone enhancing products by aging men has also growth exponentially over the past decade.

An evaluation of the recent study that questions the anti-aging efficacy of DHEA and testosterone reveals serious flaws that invalidate the study’s findings. Despite these flaws, the actual findings show a small but significant benefit to DHEA-testosterone when measuring certain parameters related to aging. The media choose to downplay the benefits demonstrated in this study and instead launched an attack against the use of DHEA-testosterone for anti-aging purposes.

Proponents of natural hormone restoration have been very clear about the need to achieve optimal levels of testosterone and DHEA. The subjects in this recent study were not individually dosed and therefore did not come anywhere close to achieving optimal blood levels. It is thus no surprise that the results of this flawed study are inconsistent with the known health benefits of DHEA.

The financial existence of drug companies is dependent on substantial numbers of aging Americans contracting degenerative diseases. Drug companies therefore have an economic interest in finding ways to discourage and even criminalize the use of youth hormones that protect against age-related disease. For instance, if DHEA and testosterone supplementation only lowered cardiovascular disease rates by 20%, the drug industry would face billions of dollars in lost profits, as sales of drugs used to treat vascular diseases would be correspondingly reduced.

In an attempt to discredit the benefits of natural hormone restoration, conventional doctors, some with direct financial links to the pharmaceutical industry, sought to mischaracterize the findings from this very small and flawed study on elderly men and women.

The downplaying of the beneficial findings found in this study, along with ten specific flaws that invalidate its results, represents a biased attempt to discourage aging Americans from maintaining or restoring youthful hormone balance.
 

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