A general view of biological aging is that it's an unintended consequence of both developmental programs and maintenance programs. Emulating youthful DHEA-S serum levels will activate insulin-like growth factor 1 signaling pathways. That pretty much guarantees further biological aging an as unintended consequence.
That's one way to look at it-another is, what's the optimal dietary approach to attenuate the age-related decline for DHEA-S (and all the other big picture biomarkers)? That's the goal, not to improve one and mess up the others.
We all have microscopic cancer cells Blocking IGF-1 is a primary target of many anti-cancer therapies Would increasing IGF-1 promote microscopic cancers rather than letting macrophages remove them? Hmmm
I really appreciate your videos, Michael. Thank you. I love your approach to achieving all these goals with food and lifestyle interventions first before resorting to supplements. Very much looking forward to hearing about your thoughts on how to raise DHEAS levels.
Thanks Andrea Kladar! My latest DHEAS test (Monday, 1/23/23) was still relatively low (125), so that's still a challenge. Glycine supplementation didn't make a dent, which I thought was possible. Got any ideas?
So were you only eating the eggs right before the 4 tests or throughout that whole period? If the latter then no affect but the former may not be allowing the proper absorption time. Also what happens between the ages of 8 and 18 that increases dhea-s initially?
Yep, the day before for the 4 tests, then testing in the morning. proper absorption time may be possible, but it's about 18h before the test, so that should be enough time. Even if it's not enough time, TC isn't significantly correlated with DHEA-S over 16 tests, which suggests that I should try something else. That's a great question about the childhood rise, I'm not sure about the mechanism.
In hindsight, I should've included thyroid hormones in the big picture biomarkers, which I'll likely include going forward. Then, I can see if zinc or any other nutrients or foods may be better or worse.
Thanks again Micheal, for another great and as always informative video. I had your thyroid condition while young. No longer since I eat WFPB Diet. Try seaweed in your salads
I've tried lots of stuff in the past without L-thyroxine, with no luck-TSH always rises and T4 and T3 are then correspondingly low. Note that my thyroid gland had atrophied when in my 20s-I'm not sure if that was your situation. In terms of WFPB, my diet has ~90g of fiber/day, so I'm very close to that.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I had slow thyroid as a child till I turned 21. I changed my some foods in my diet. After that the Doctor took me off the medication, no longer needing it. I don't use salt, but eat seaweed for the nutrients of iodine to keep me regular. Good luck Micheal I know you are extremely thorough with your program.
Adrenal glands are supplied cholesterol by HDL not LDL particles (most hormone producing organs get cholesterol from HDL). increasing ldl cholesterol probably won’t affect dhea-s.
Hmmm. In my early 30s, DHEA-S was double what it is now, without an age-related change for HDL. So there's another mechanism related to its decline in my case...
HDL functionality is currently unmeasurable … each HDL can have between 1 and 4 apoa-1’s attached … maybe your (our) HDL is less functional are you (we) age
Did you do a yt on tmg supplementation and homocysteine levels ? … turns out I have 2 Mthfr mutations and homocysteine is 10umol … that’s with 35mg b6, I’ve just added tmg and b9 … of course after seeing your yt on homocysteine and methionine I’m wondering if I should bother .
@@jp7357 I have a few videos on why I don't think TMG is the best approach to lower homocysteine, with a focus on longevity. For ex., th-cam.com/video/MwtsA391OZ0/w-d-xo.html Note that the amino acid serine is needed to pull homocysteine down towards cysteine in the presence of B6, and that's my current approach for lowering my own homocysteine.
Excellent video, thanks. It would be interesting if you supplimented with DHEA 5 mg/day and measured your blood DHEA-S and homocysteine. Afterall you are supplimenting with T4 which is a daily pill. So why not add another daily pill?
I'm not opposed to DHEA-S supplementation, but that doesn't fix the problem, and that's the goal to start. If I can't, then supplementation is on the table. More pills doesn't necessarily = more health, there's plenty of data on polypharmacy being associated with worse outcomes, not better: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34981552/
Great video. Im massively into longevity and superfit. Majority of my bloodwork is impressively good , however my DHEAs is super low at 1.3 µmol/L. My cholesterol is also super high at 8.2 mmol/L. My homocysteine is 10. I know why my cholesterol is so high(carnivore/keto) so ill fix that. But just wanted to let you know that I dont think they are correlated. Did you ever work it out or is there a followup video?
Thanks @kermit5487. I'm still working on increasing DHEA-S, but the good news is that it's stable since 2022-no age-related decline. I'm confident that I'll increase it, it's just a matter of data collection + analysis.
For me i take antiandrogens to lower my dhea-s because of acne and virilization, my dhea-s was 620 ug/dl and now is 420ug/dl, I'm 30 years old. It's a problem to lower dhea-s or in my case is good?
"Short-Term Impact of a Lactovegetarian Diet on Adrenocortical Activity and Adrenal Androgens" : "The respective hormonal changes appear to be attributable to combined food effects, probably an increased dietary fiber intake and a decreased protein intake. Isolated changes in single dietary components (dietary fiber and protein) did not induce comparable results (11, 29). " "Plasma levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) were elevated with diet L (6.5 ± 1.4 vs. 5.3 ± 1.1 μmol/L; P < 0.05) compared to diet N, whereas other plasma hormones, including cortisol and insulin-like growth factor I did not vary markedly." Interesting study !
Thanks Okrim Iksnajleb, I've seen that paper. Before reducing my fiber intake (to test that hypothesis), I'm now trying a fructose cut, which impacts DHEA-S (albeit in rats): pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21713743/
Interesting. Well, DHEA remained the same after consuming dietary cholesterol, but the blood cholesterol didn't raise as well. I am curious if the DHEA would raise after raising blood cholesterol as well. As far as I know that can be done by increasing dietary saturated fat intake.
In my data, saturated fat is also significantly correlated with higher blood cholesterol, but just like dietary cholesterol, it has a negative correlative score with big picture biomarkers. However, much of that may be driven by dairy SFAs, which I've recently limited. I may try that experiment, though, going higher for SFAs (without full-fat dairy) to raise blood cholesterol while tracking DHEA-S, too.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I took into account as both cholesterol raising methods (with dietary cholesterol or SFA's) have a negative correlative score with big picture biomarkers, but if there may be a distinction between SFA's from diary and SFA's from other sources, then it makes me even more curious!
Excellent video Michael. Thank you. I have the same problem with DHEAS and hypothyroidism. Did you find the root cause of why DHEAS is low? I'm 57 and my DHEAS is 83. My TSH is around 1.5 and my Free T3 is 2.6.
@@conqueragingordietrying123take low dose Pregnenolone 20-30 mg everyday If you take a high dose you will increase progesterone Low does will increase DHEA
My reading of the literature is that 1.5 may be optimal, too. But I want to get Free T3 up, as the primary strategy. Dealing with the endocrinologist at Tufts hasn't been great, so fingers crossed about being able to alter my thyroid medication.
Many of us who have hypothyroidism are not optimized by levithyroxine (T4) alone. Explore using Natural Dessicated Thyroid (combo of T4 and T3) as a way to optimize your free T3. Armor Thyroid is one brand of NDT and must be prescribed. Perhaps this will help.
My DHEA came out at 2.260 ng/mL which I am guessing is 226 ug/dl. Life Extension Foundation says above 350 is ideal: "For women, an ideal DHEA-S blood level is 275 ug/dL-400 ug/dL. For men, it’s 350 ug/dL-500 ug/dL.Most older people can achieve optimal results by taking 15 mg-50 mg of DHEA daily." I will also try increasing my cholesterol by going from 6 to10 eggs per week. I will report back as to what happens with my experiment. My lipid levels have fallen, so I am not worried about any extra burden there Triglycerides 37 mg/dL Cholesterol 134 mg/dL LDL Calculated 69 mg/dL HDL 54 mg/dL Albumin 4.5
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Darn it! I already take a modest dose of niacin 50mg. I know that you're also concentrating on homocysteine. Niacin may increase that "Results: During the screening phase, titration of niacin dose from 100 mg to 1000 mg daily resulted in a 17% increase in mean plasma homocyst(e)ine level from 13.1 +/- 4.4 micromol/L to 15.3 +/- 5.6 micromol/L (P
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I saw the claim below. It does not appear to me to be published in a peer reviewed journal. In any event, perhaps increasing boron through diet or supplements might be worth a try. It does appear to increase free testosterone in some studies, so maybe it does actually influence dhea. "After taking 6mg or Boron in the form of Calcium Fructoborate, for 60 days the participants' blood was tested again. The average increase in vitamin D levels was 19.6%. DHEA and testosterone were also increased 56% and 29.5% respectively. FruiteX-B increased Vitamin D 19.6%, DHEA 56%, and Free Testosterone 29.5%. One male participant had an increase of 50% in testosterone. There was shown to be a relationship between FruiteX-B and hormone balance." Study Information Natasha Miljkovic Vitamin D/ Steroid Hormone Homeostasis and Calcium Fructoborate Supplementation 2002 March Department of Orthopedic Medicine at the University of Novi Sad Edit: I noticed that Fruitex B is already in my Glucosamine supplement. I don't think it works any wonders.
Thx Prof Lustgarten for this another great video. Just let me notice that subclinical hypothyroidism is frequently seen among centenarians and could be a promise of extreme longevity. That's why endocronists are now advised not to correct this condition among the elderly, not you of course.Maybe a topic to investigate in the future.
Thanks Abdelilah. In terms of SCH being present in centenarians, I'd posit that's a consequence of their longevity (i.e. poor thyroid function), not a cause. In support of that, DHEA-S and homocysteine are not great in people older than 100y, too.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 intresting to know especially if it is shown by a Mendelian randomization study.Still how can we know if correcting SCH , this physiological (?) condition , could bring more harm than good?
@@abdelilahbenahmed4350 We can't, but I'd rather have relatively higher T3 levels than now, especially when considering the free T3/T4 ratio in this paper is associated with an increased ACM risk: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36060933/ My ratio is low...
My Mother had hypothyroid for 30 years plus and was doing well on Levothyroxine and had good blood test results for T4. Until a new doctor decreased her dose by 25mcg. She started to decline and I had to battle with the doctors to reinstate her dose but to no avail. She was 90 years old and was well and walking upright and was steady in her gait. After this her decline started, mentally and strength wise. I took her to Dr Barry Peatfield who was trained by Dr Broda Barnes in the US and he put her on T3. It helped her but by that time she had been diagnosed with vascular dementia. The T3 kept her going until she got carers and then another battle for the carers to give her the T3 which I had to buy privately. It became a lost cause and when she was admitted to hospital with a UTI onto the dementia ward where she wasn't given any T4 or T3 and I watched a fast decline of health and mental state until she died. A month before she was admitted to hospital she was walking with a wheeled walker a mile with no help and although not as chatty as before she could still hold a conversation and knew who people were. She died aged 95.5 years. I truly believe that having the T4 in the high range and giving the T3 helped her mentally and strength wise. I am hypothyroid but I take NDT which I have to import. If I go low my voice breaks so I take another .5 grain. @@conqueragingordietrying123
I was of the impression that if trying to raise cholesterol, then dietary fiber might need to be reduced or at least not in the same meal.... as fiber has an impact on cholesterol
That's definitely possible. Nonetheless, blood levels of cholesterol aren't significantly correlated with DHEA-S (in my data), so I'm going to move on from that strategy, for now.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Cholesterol couldn't be correlated, the amount of cholesterol needed for all daily steroid hormones is on the order of 1 mg.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 goodness, 6 is a lot higher than expected. Pre diabetes is 5.7 upwards. The Levels Health blog interviewed a number of researchers and doctors such as Dominic d'agostino, dr Perlmutter etc and most felt below 5 was ideal for longevity. But it is interesting to get your views too. I always wondered how low was too low
@@littlevoice_11 The < 5.7% comes from this meta-analysis of 12 studies: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27045572/ A larger meta-analysis, and more recent shows 5-6%: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5642750/ Probably closer to 5.3% is optimal, though, as that's what's found in youth: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716867/
No worries Adrian. In contrast with traditional medicine, I prefer going after root causes to fix biochemistry-related issues. If that doesn't work (including many blood tests), then I'm open to supplementation.
I found "TC is not significantly correlated with DHEA-S" questionable because most of your DHEA-S tests occurred in a period where TC hadn't been up (and down?)...
That's definitely possible. Also possible is that while DHEA-S is not significantly correlated with TC, it's within a relatively low TC range-what about at TC > 160? In disagreement with that hypothesis, TC was also low for one of the tests in 2005, but DHEA-S was higher.
Really good experiment and observation … I am 51 years old, and this is first time I did not have my period in 2 months now.. My obgyn ran blood work to test hormones.. thyroid and all other hormones came out normal except I have elevated DHEA (191) .. i would like to find out the root cause of high DHEA? She has asked me to make and appointment with Endocrinologist for further analysis. I would like to share my medical history with you and get your feedback if I should look into lowering my DHAlevel Thanks for sharing your study , it is really helpful.
Pregnenolone is synthesized in the adrenal gland, testis and placenta in the amount of ~15 mg/day. Most cholesterol for this synthesis is produced locally. The amount of cholesterol taken from the blood for this purpose might be in the single digits percentagewise. So, you take maybe 1-2 mg of cholesterol from the blood to synthesize pregnenolone, which is, of course, the precursor to all steroid hormones. Given that you have over 4 grams of cholesterol in the blood (and less healthy people might have as much as 10 grams), blood cholesterol is completely unimportant in this respect.
Yes, get to the root cause!! I was wondering if you have looked into Carnivore? Increased intake of taurine, reduction in systemic inflammation, increased insulin sensitivity, increased blood cholesterol... This diet seems to be a cure-all, and may also increase DHEA-S ??
The reference range for free T3 of your test (2.5-4.3 pg/mL) is quite different from the reference range of the laboratory that I use. Mine is 1.7-3.7 pg/mL.
The reference range isn't what's optimal for free T3. For example, see this paper for the free T3/T4 ratio-when using that metric, mine is low: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36060933/
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I know. I just thought it's curious that the ranges are so different. Your and my free T3 are considered normal in my range, but not yours.
I wonder whether people are different in the US vs. where I live or whether the test results depend on the testing method / the laboratory. If it's the latter, then we cannot easily compare our results to what's optimal either.
@@bottlenecks My T3 has always been on the low side, regardless of the lab or test that I used. It's an absolute concentration that can be compared against others in the published literature.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Is it possible that the people who published that paper got the unit wrong? Many different units for free T3 are common, but I didn't find any other source confirming that around 3.18 ng/dL is a normal level. For example Cleveland Clinic says 2.3-4.1 pg/mL are normal for adults. But to get from pg/mL to ng/dL you need to divide by 10! (They also say that free T3 tests are not as reliable as general T3 tests.)
maybe u can try L-ornithine supplementation, its pretty cheap per daily dose (1kg = 60 euro, daily dose 400mg), its relatively low on plant based diets (like urs) often it seems to improve the cortisol:dhea ratio (effectively increasing dhea) in some smaller studies apparently also improves sleep quality (likely because of the above), and since u dont want to get rid of ur beloved caffeine from green tea (cuz every study ever says its so healthy (which i dont think is a general truth)), that might be a nice bonus 😂 wont hurt trying out i guess
It's lower than expected based on chronological age, but I can't say how bad, as many other factors are involved The challenge is to increase it back to youthful levels (in my case, too)...
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I have lost my weight since 2020. From over 90kg to 74kg (183cm). In first year 10kg. According to some research I found on the internet, it should increase DHEA-S levels. And in my case it seems as if the level of this hormone has decreased. I'm afraid of what will happen when I'm 35 or 40.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I have lost weight since 2020. in total from over 90kg to 74kg. over 10kg in the first year. According to a study I found on the Internet, losing weight should increase the level of DHEA-S, and for me it looks like it caused a decrease. I'm worried about its level at the age of 35, 40 or 50.
Interesting video. Two things. First, for hypothyroidism/ hashimoto, some studies have shown than a tiny amount of nigella sativa a day decreased TSH, increased free T3,T4 and decreased antibodies to hashimoto. Worth a try in your case. Two, Adventist in in the blue zone are also following a mostly plant based diet and their level of cholesterol must as such also be low. However contrary to the video you showed on increased mortality risk with low levels of total cholesterol, they tend to live quite long. Maybe those data are not representative for someone eating a wfpb diet. Maybe people who have low cholesterol normally have some bad genetic backgrounds or it is due to some kind of malnutrition leading to a biased linking low cholesterol to mortality risk. Maybe if it's low cholesterol with wfpb it's actually positive. Will you continue to eat eggs from now on? Has it shown any benefits? Thanks
Hey soulnight, can you please post the studies for the nigella sativa-thyroid hormone link? As mentioned in the video, high albumin and HDL can reduce the mortality risk associated with low TC.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 you're welcome. Would be very interesting if you tried it while tracking all your blood variables. You would have to add tsh, t3, t4, and the antibodies before you begin though.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 by the way, since you didn't know about nigella sativa, I suppose you don't know about ashwagandha having similar effect either. Again studied in double blind placebo: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28829155/
Hey @tommygallant4512, at 10:50 we can see that subclinical hypothyroidism was associated with increased homocysteine, so that could be true, i.e. fixing thyroid function will lower homocysteine.
Congratulations on the 10 k subs!!! This channel deserves way more.
Thanks KoiRun. I'm not worried about the numbers-we're just getting started, and I plan on doing this for the next 73+ years!
Lol
A general view of biological aging is that it's an unintended consequence of both developmental programs and maintenance programs. Emulating youthful DHEA-S serum levels will activate insulin-like growth factor 1 signaling pathways. That pretty much guarantees further biological aging an as unintended consequence.
That's one way to look at it-another is, what's the optimal dietary approach to attenuate the age-related decline for DHEA-S (and all the other big picture biomarkers)? That's the goal, not to improve one and mess up the others.
We all have microscopic cancer cells
Blocking IGF-1 is a primary target of many anti-cancer therapies
Would increasing IGF-1 promote microscopic cancers rather than letting macrophages remove them?
Hmmm
I tried cocoa butter and chia seed. That increased my HDL(90.9) while my LDL is unchanged (108). Testosterone is 416 ng/dl.
I really appreciate your videos, Michael. Thank you. I love your approach to achieving all these goals with food and lifestyle interventions first before resorting to supplements. Very much looking forward to hearing about your thoughts on how to raise DHEAS levels.
Thanks Andrea Kladar! My latest DHEAS test (Monday, 1/23/23) was still relatively low (125), so that's still a challenge. Glycine supplementation didn't make a dent, which I thought was possible. Got any ideas?
Very interesting road toward fixing your DHEA-S.
Level of DHEA-S is 60% genetics. The rest is unknown. Fat tissue does contribute a little.
So were you only eating the eggs right before the 4 tests or throughout that whole period? If the latter then no affect but the former may not be allowing the proper absorption time. Also what happens between the ages of 8 and 18 that increases dhea-s initially?
Yep, the day before for the 4 tests, then testing in the morning. proper absorption time may be possible, but it's about 18h before the test, so that should be enough time. Even if it's not enough time, TC isn't significantly correlated with DHEA-S over 16 tests, which suggests that I should try something else.
That's a great question about the childhood rise, I'm not sure about the mechanism.
I also have hypothyroidism and I take synthroid. I eat some nori everyday. I noticed that zinc supplementation increases thyroid hormone production.
In hindsight, I should've included thyroid hormones in the big picture biomarkers, which I'll likely include going forward. Then, I can see if zinc or any other nutrients or foods may be better or worse.
Problem of SULTA1? take Molybdene to increase this enzyme and increase Sulfate DHEA
It could be SULTA1. Is there published data that molybdenum increases SULTA1 expression?
@@conqueragingordietrying123 SULT2A1 need sulfate, try molybden and take bath with Espom salt. It works for me (im french, sorry for falts)
@@conqueragingordietrying123 SULT2A1 need sulfate, try molybden and take bath with Espom salt. It works for me (im french, sorry for falts)
Im curious if you ever adjusted your thyroid med to increase your fT3 defeciency and if that would increase your DHEAs?
Ah, I have another idea for increasing DHEAS, one that doesn't involve thyroid hormones...
Video in production soon!
What at-home thyroid testing do you use? Is it "prick once get 3 (TSH, T3, T4)"? I intend to use it to adjust my wakame/iodine intake.
Hi Dao, I used letsgetchecked.com, and it included TSH, Free T3 and T4.
Thanks again Micheal, for another great and as always informative video. I had your thyroid condition while young. No longer since I eat WFPB Diet. Try seaweed in your salads
I've tried lots of stuff in the past without L-thyroxine, with no luck-TSH always rises and T4 and T3 are then correspondingly low. Note that my thyroid gland had atrophied when in my 20s-I'm not sure if that was your situation. In terms of WFPB, my diet has ~90g of fiber/day, so I'm very close to that.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I had slow thyroid as a child till I turned 21. I changed my some foods in my diet. After that the Doctor took me off the medication, no longer needing it. I don't use salt, but eat seaweed for the nutrients of iodine to keep me regular. Good luck Micheal I know you are extremely thorough with your program.
Adrenal glands are supplied cholesterol by HDL not LDL particles (most hormone producing organs get cholesterol from HDL). increasing ldl cholesterol probably won’t affect dhea-s.
Hmmm. In my early 30s, DHEA-S was double what it is now, without an age-related change for HDL. So there's another mechanism related to its decline in my case...
HDL functionality is currently unmeasurable … each HDL can have between 1 and 4 apoa-1’s attached … maybe your (our) HDL is less functional are you (we) age
Did you do a yt on tmg supplementation and homocysteine levels ? … turns out I have 2 Mthfr mutations and homocysteine is 10umol … that’s with 35mg b6, I’ve just added tmg and b9 … of course after seeing your yt on homocysteine and methionine I’m wondering if I should bother .
@@jp7357 I have a few videos on why I don't think TMG is the best approach to lower homocysteine, with a focus on longevity. For ex., th-cam.com/video/MwtsA391OZ0/w-d-xo.html
Note that the amino acid serine is needed to pull homocysteine down towards cysteine in the presence of B6, and that's my current approach for lowering my own homocysteine.
I disagree. VLDL and IDL supply adrenals and gonads with the needed cholesterol esters to produce their respective hormones. Watch ninja nerd.
Hi! You should chech reverse t3 too!
Yes, secondarily I will
Excellent video, thanks. It would be interesting if you supplimented with DHEA 5 mg/day and measured your blood DHEA-S and homocysteine. Afterall you are supplimenting with T4 which is a daily pill. So why not add another daily pill?
I'm not opposed to DHEA-S supplementation, but that doesn't fix the problem, and that's the goal to start. If I can't, then supplementation is on the table. More pills doesn't necessarily = more health, there's plenty of data on polypharmacy being associated with worse outcomes, not better:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34981552/
Great video. Im massively into longevity and superfit. Majority of my bloodwork is impressively good , however my DHEAs is super low at 1.3 µmol/L. My cholesterol is also super high at 8.2 mmol/L. My homocysteine is 10. I know why my cholesterol is so high(carnivore/keto) so ill fix that. But just wanted to let you know that I dont think they are correlated. Did you ever work it out or is there a followup video?
Thanks @kermit5487. I'm still working on increasing DHEA-S, but the good news is that it's stable since 2022-no age-related decline. I'm confident that I'll increase it, it's just a matter of data collection + analysis.
For me i take antiandrogens to lower my dhea-s because of acne and virilization, my dhea-s was 620 ug/dl and now is 420ug/dl, I'm 30 years old. It's a problem to lower dhea-s or in my case is good?
I haven't looked into the too high story DHEA-S, so unfortunately I don't have an answer atm. Age-related decline is more common...
"Short-Term Impact of a Lactovegetarian Diet on Adrenocortical Activity and Adrenal Androgens" : "The respective hormonal changes appear to be attributable to combined food effects, probably an increased dietary fiber intake and a decreased protein intake. Isolated changes in single dietary components (dietary fiber and protein) did not induce comparable results (11, 29). " "Plasma levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) were elevated with diet L (6.5 ± 1.4 vs. 5.3 ± 1.1 μmol/L; P < 0.05) compared to diet N, whereas other plasma hormones, including cortisol and insulin-like growth factor I did not vary markedly."
Interesting study !
Thanks Okrim Iksnajleb, I've seen that paper. Before reducing my fiber intake (to test that hypothesis), I'm now trying a fructose cut, which impacts DHEA-S (albeit in rats):
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21713743/
Interesting. Well, DHEA remained the same after consuming dietary cholesterol, but the blood cholesterol didn't raise as well. I am curious if the DHEA would raise after raising blood cholesterol as well. As far as I know that can be done by increasing dietary saturated fat intake.
In my data, saturated fat is also significantly correlated with higher blood cholesterol, but just like dietary cholesterol, it has a negative correlative score with big picture biomarkers.
However, much of that may be driven by dairy SFAs, which I've recently limited. I may try that experiment, though, going higher for SFAs (without full-fat dairy) to raise blood cholesterol while tracking DHEA-S, too.
@@conqueragingordietrying123
I took into account as both cholesterol raising methods (with dietary cholesterol or SFA's) have a negative correlative score with big picture biomarkers, but if there may be a distinction between SFA's from diary and SFA's from other sources, then it makes me even more curious!
Excellent video Michael. Thank you. I have the same problem with DHEAS and hypothyroidism. Did you find the root cause of why DHEAS is low? I'm 57 and my DHEAS is 83. My TSH is around 1.5 and my Free T3 is 2.6.
Hi Klara B, unfortunately, not yet. The NAD-DHEAS hypothesis didn't work, but I've got another few tricks up the sleeve!
@@conqueragingordietrying123take low dose Pregnenolone 20-30 mg everyday
If you take a high dose you will increase progesterone
Low does will increase DHEA
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Did you find why DHEA is low? I read that Brian Johnson take 25mg DHEA by day.
How did you know you had hypo thyroid issue? Was it your tsh levels?
Tired all the time and cold intolerance, but note that was 20+ years ago for the diagnosis.
I read online that optimal TSH is below 2 or even 1.5. So maybe lowering your TSH by increasing synthroid and/or changing diet can help?
My reading of the literature is that 1.5 may be optimal, too. But I want to get Free T3 up, as the primary strategy. Dealing with the endocrinologist at Tufts hasn't been great, so fingers crossed about being able to alter my thyroid medication.
Optimal tsh is 1 or below. Forget about normalnreference ranges they are for average obese americans
Many of us who have hypothyroidism are not optimized by levithyroxine (T4) alone. Explore using Natural Dessicated Thyroid (combo of T4 and T3) as a way to optimize your free T3. Armor Thyroid is one brand of NDT and must be prescribed. Perhaps this will help.
when will you do the next video about lung performance?
I just got an iMST+EMST trainer, so once I have enough data-at the earliest, about a month, but it could be longer...
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Which brand and model did you pick?
@@sathmath8544 The “breather fit”. We’ll see how it goes, so far it’s easy on the highest resistance settings.
My DHEA came out at 2.260 ng/mL which I am guessing is 226 ug/dl. Life Extension Foundation says above 350 is ideal:
"For women, an ideal DHEA-S blood level is 275 ug/dL-400 ug/dL. For men, it’s 350 ug/dL-500 ug/dL.Most older people can achieve optimal results by taking 15 mg-50 mg of DHEA daily."
I will also try increasing my cholesterol by going from 6 to10 eggs per week. I will report back as to what happens with my experiment. My lipid levels have fallen, so I am not worried about any extra burden there
Triglycerides 37 mg/dL
Cholesterol 134 mg/dL
LDL Calculated 69 mg/dL
HDL 54 mg/dL
Albumin 4.5
I don't think it's a cholesterol problem, but NAD, as NADP is required to convert cholesterol into androgens...
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Thanks Dr. Lustgarten. I am very interested to see the results of your grape seed experiment!
@@jackbuaer3828 That video's coming on Wednesday! Spoiler-I've moved onto naicin...
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Darn it! I already take a modest dose of niacin 50mg. I know that you're also concentrating on homocysteine. Niacin may increase that
"Results: During the screening phase, titration of niacin dose from 100 mg to 1000 mg daily resulted in a 17% increase in mean plasma homocyst(e)ine level from 13.1 +/- 4.4 micromol/L to 15.3 +/- 5.6 micromol/L (P
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I saw the claim below. It does not appear to me to be published in a peer reviewed journal. In any event, perhaps increasing boron through diet or supplements might be worth a try. It does appear to increase free testosterone in some studies, so maybe it does actually influence dhea.
"After taking 6mg or Boron in the form of Calcium Fructoborate, for 60 days the participants' blood was tested again. The average increase in vitamin D levels was 19.6%. DHEA and testosterone were also increased 56% and 29.5% respectively.
FruiteX-B increased Vitamin D 19.6%, DHEA 56%, and Free Testosterone 29.5%. One male participant had an increase of 50% in testosterone. There was shown to be a relationship between FruiteX-B and hormone balance."
Study Information
Natasha Miljkovic
Vitamin D/ Steroid Hormone Homeostasis and Calcium Fructoborate Supplementation
2002 March
Department of Orthopedic Medicine at the University of Novi Sad
Edit: I noticed that Fruitex B is already in my Glucosamine supplement. I don't think it works any wonders.
Thx Prof Lustgarten for this another great video. Just let me notice that subclinical hypothyroidism is frequently seen among centenarians and could be a promise of extreme longevity. That's why endocronists are now advised not to correct this condition among the elderly, not you of course.Maybe a topic to investigate in the future.
Thanks Abdelilah. In terms of SCH being present in centenarians, I'd posit that's a consequence of their longevity (i.e. poor thyroid function), not a cause. In support of that, DHEA-S and homocysteine are not great in people older than 100y, too.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 intresting to know especially if it is shown by a Mendelian randomization study.Still how can we know if correcting SCH , this physiological (?) condition , could bring more harm than good?
@@abdelilahbenahmed4350 We can't, but I'd rather have relatively higher T3 levels than now, especially when considering the free T3/T4 ratio in this paper is associated with an increased ACM risk:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36060933/
My ratio is low...
My Mother had hypothyroid for 30 years plus and was doing well on Levothyroxine and had good blood test results for T4. Until a new doctor decreased her dose by 25mcg. She started to decline and I had to battle with the doctors to reinstate her dose but to no avail. She was 90 years old and was well and walking upright and was steady in her gait. After this her decline started, mentally and strength wise. I took her to Dr Barry Peatfield who was trained by Dr Broda Barnes in the US and he put her on T3. It helped her but by that time she had been diagnosed with vascular dementia. The T3 kept her going until she got carers and then another battle for the carers to give her the T3 which I had to buy privately. It became a lost cause and when she was admitted to hospital with a UTI onto the dementia ward where she wasn't given any T4 or T3 and I watched a fast decline of health and mental state until she died. A month before she was admitted to hospital she was walking with a wheeled walker a mile with no help and although not as chatty as before she could still hold a conversation and knew who people were. She died aged 95.5 years. I truly believe that having the T4 in the high range and giving the T3 helped her mentally and strength wise. I am hypothyroid but I take NDT which I have to import. If I go low my voice breaks so I take another .5 grain. @@conqueragingordietrying123
I was of the impression that if trying to raise cholesterol, then dietary fiber might need to be reduced or at least not in the same meal.... as fiber has an impact on cholesterol
That's definitely possible. Nonetheless, blood levels of cholesterol aren't significantly correlated with DHEA-S (in my data), so I'm going to move on from that strategy, for now.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Cholesterol couldn't be correlated, the amount of cholesterol needed for all daily steroid hormones is on the order of 1 mg.
with so many interesting videos, I'm struggling to find the best one with advice on Hb1ac. what is the ideal hba1c please?
5-6
@@conqueragingordietrying123 goodness, 6 is a lot higher than expected. Pre diabetes is 5.7 upwards. The Levels Health blog interviewed a number of researchers and doctors such as Dominic d'agostino, dr Perlmutter etc and most felt below 5 was ideal for longevity. But it is interesting to get your views too. I always wondered how low was too low
@@conqueragingordietrying123 how would anaemia effect results if at all?
@@littlevoice_11 The < 5.7% comes from this meta-analysis of 12 studies:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27045572/
A larger meta-analysis, and more recent shows 5-6%:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5642750/
Probably closer to 5.3% is optimal, though, as that's what's found in youth:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716867/
@@littlevoice_11 Not sure...
This might be a very dumb question but why not just take a DHEA supplement?
No worries Adrian. In contrast with traditional medicine, I prefer going after root causes to fix biochemistry-related issues. If that doesn't work (including many blood tests), then I'm open to supplementation.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Wow, fascinating!
I found "TC is not significantly correlated with DHEA-S" questionable because most of your DHEA-S tests occurred in a period where TC hadn't been up (and down?)...
That's definitely possible. Also possible is that while DHEA-S is not significantly correlated with TC, it's within a relatively low TC range-what about at TC > 160?
In disagreement with that hypothesis, TC was also low for one of the tests in 2005, but DHEA-S was higher.
Really good experiment and observation … I am 51 years old, and this is first time I did not have my period in 2 months now.. My obgyn ran blood work to test hormones.. thyroid and all other hormones came out normal except I have elevated DHEA (191) .. i would like to find out the root cause of high DHEA? She has asked me to make and appointment with Endocrinologist for further analysis. I would like to share my medical history with you and get your feedback if I should look into lowering my DHAlevel Thanks for sharing your study , it is really helpful.
When considering DHEA is formed from cholesterol, that would be a good place to start-what's your LDL?
@@conqueragingordietrying123 my LDL is 156 and HDL is 80 total 234, thanks for responding.
Pregnenolone is synthesized in the adrenal gland, testis and placenta in the amount of ~15 mg/day. Most cholesterol for this synthesis is produced locally. The amount of cholesterol taken from the blood for this purpose might be in the single digits percentagewise. So, you take maybe 1-2 mg of cholesterol from the blood to synthesize pregnenolone, which is, of course, the precursor to all steroid hormones. Given that you have over 4 grams of cholesterol in the blood (and less healthy people might have as much as 10 grams), blood cholesterol is completely unimportant in this respect.
Yes, get to the root cause!!
I was wondering if you have looked into Carnivore?
Increased intake of taurine, reduction in systemic inflammation, increased insulin sensitivity, increased blood cholesterol... This diet seems to be a cure-all, and may also increase DHEA-S ??
My blood biomarkers are almost all youthful-to go carnivore would mean blowing up the system, which won't happen. ..
im in my 50s and level is 590? is that good
The reference range for free T3 of your test (2.5-4.3 pg/mL) is quite different from the reference range of the laboratory that I use. Mine is 1.7-3.7 pg/mL.
The reference range isn't what's optimal for free T3. For example, see this paper for the free T3/T4 ratio-when using that metric, mine is low:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36060933/
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I know. I just thought it's curious that the ranges are so different. Your and my free T3 are considered normal in my range, but not yours.
I wonder whether people are different in the US vs. where I live or whether the test results depend on the testing method / the laboratory. If it's the latter, then we cannot easily compare our results to what's optimal either.
@@bottlenecks My T3 has always been on the low side, regardless of the lab or test that I used. It's an absolute concentration that can be compared against others in the published literature.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Is it possible that the people who published that paper got the unit wrong? Many different units for free T3 are common, but I didn't find any other source confirming that around 3.18 ng/dL is a normal level. For example Cleveland Clinic says 2.3-4.1 pg/mL are normal for adults. But to get from pg/mL to ng/dL you need to divide by 10! (They also say that free T3 tests are not as reliable as general T3 tests.)
maybe u can try L-ornithine supplementation, its pretty cheap per daily dose (1kg = 60 euro, daily dose 400mg), its relatively low on plant based diets (like urs) often
it seems to improve the cortisol:dhea ratio (effectively increasing dhea) in some smaller studies
apparently also improves sleep quality (likely because of the above), and since u dont want to get rid of ur beloved caffeine from green tea (cuz every study ever says its so healthy (which i dont think is a general truth)), that might be a nice bonus 😂 wont hurt trying out i guess
I am 30 years old. How bad is to have DHEA-S 139 ug/dl? 3 years age I had 193.
It's lower than expected based on chronological age, but I can't say how bad, as many other factors are involved
The challenge is to increase it back to youthful levels (in my case, too)...
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I have lost my weight since 2020. From over 90kg to 74kg (183cm). In first year 10kg. According to some research I found on the internet, it should increase DHEA-S levels. And in my case it seems as if the level of this hormone has decreased. I'm afraid of what will happen when I'm 35 or 40.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 I have lost weight since 2020. in total from over 90kg to 74kg. over 10kg in the first year. According to a study I found on the Internet, losing weight should increase the level of DHEA-S, and for me it looks like it caused a decrease. I'm worried about its level at the age of 35, 40 or 50.
What about the expression of Alpha-MSH?
How does Alpha-MSH expression relate to DHEA-S?
@@conqueragingordietrying123 Alpha-MSH relates to food appetite and thyroid function.
I am wondering, what is the relation of DHEA-S in Agouti Mouse & AgRP. Working via mammalian alpha-msh...
Interesting video.
Two things.
First, for hypothyroidism/ hashimoto, some studies have shown than a tiny amount of nigella sativa a day decreased TSH, increased free T3,T4 and decreased antibodies to hashimoto. Worth a try in your case.
Two, Adventist in in the blue zone are also following a mostly plant based diet and their level of cholesterol must as such also be low. However contrary to the video you showed on increased mortality risk with low levels of total cholesterol, they tend to live quite long. Maybe those data are not representative for someone eating a wfpb diet. Maybe people who have low cholesterol normally have some bad genetic backgrounds or it is due to some kind of malnutrition leading to a biased linking low cholesterol to mortality risk. Maybe if it's low cholesterol with wfpb it's actually positive.
Will you continue to eat eggs from now on? Has it shown any benefits?
Thanks
Hey soulnight, can you please post the studies for the nigella sativa-thyroid hormone link?
As mentioned in the video, high albumin and HDL can reduce the mortality risk associated with low TC.
@@conqueragingordietrying123
Here:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27852303/
@@soulnight1606 Interesting, thanks for that!
@@conqueragingordietrying123 you're welcome. Would be very interesting if you tried it while tracking all your blood variables. You would have to add tsh, t3, t4, and the antibodies before you begin though.
@@conqueragingordietrying123 by the way, since you didn't know about nigella sativa, I suppose you don't know about ashwagandha having similar effect either. Again studied in double blind placebo:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28829155/
I can’t understand at all how fixing thyroid and getting t3 up would increase homocysteine. Fixing thyroid will lower homocysteine.
Hey @tommygallant4512, at 10:50 we can see that subclinical hypothyroidism was associated with increased homocysteine, so that could be true, i.e. fixing thyroid function will lower homocysteine.