DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is the most abundant steroid hormone in your body. Your adrenal glands make it, and it sits one step upstream of both testosterone and oestrogen, so it's the raw material your body uses to top up either side depending on what it needs. You produce a lot of it in your 20s, and then it falls off a cliff, by 70 most people are running at around 10-20% of their peak levels. This decline is one of the cleanest, most predictable curves in human endocrinology.

The simplest way to think about DHEA: it's the background hormone that keeps the lights on. Your testes or ovaries handle the big, dramatic stuff (puberty, fertility, your main testosterone or oestrogen levels). DHEA handles the quieter day-to-day signalling in skin, brain, bone, and immune tissue. Most of it gets converted locally inside those tissues into whatever they need, a bit of testosterone here, a bit of oestrogen there, so it acts like a buffer your body draws from to keep everything topped up. When DHEA drops with age, things don't break, they just get a bit duller. Skin thins, mood flattens, libido fades, recovery slows. That's the gap people are trying to fill when they supplement.

Most people take it as a low-dose hormone replacement strategy after 40 or 50, when adrenal output has dropped enough to noticeably affect energy, mood, libido, skin quality, and recovery. It's also used in women with low ovarian reserve, premature ovarian insufficiency, or adrenal insufficiency, where the standard dose can meaningfully restore androgens. The intravaginal form (prasterone) is an FDA-approved treatment for postmenopausal vaginal atrophy and pain with sex. If you're 25 and feeling fine, this isn't for you. If you're 50 and your bloodwork shows DHEA-S in the bottom third of the reference range, this is one of the cheapest, most defensible interventions you can run.

DHEA behaves very differently in men and women. In men, most of an oral dose gets shunted toward oestrogen, with only a modest bump in testosterone. In women, it can substantially raise both androgens and oestrogens, so the same 25-50 mg dose that feels mild in a 55-year-old man can be too much for a 45-year-old woman. Dose accordingly.

If you're on TRT, this is also worth paying attention to. Exogenous testosterone suppresses your HPG axis (LH, FSH, and downstream testicular output), but it also tends to drag DHEA-S down over time, partly through reduced ACTH stimulation and partly through changes in adrenal steroidogenesis. Most long-term TRT users end up with DHEA-S in the bottom quartile of the reference range even though their total testosterone looks great on paper. This is a common reason men on TRT still feel flat on mood, libido, or sense of well-being despite "perfect" T numbers. Adding back 25-50 mg of DHEA in the morning is one of the simpler fixes, just be aware that on a TRT base the oestrogen conversion stacks on top of whatever aromatisation you're already managing, so watch E2 and adjust your AI (or your dose) accordingly.

Deep-dive

Dosage:

• Women, general low-dose replacement: 10-25 mg/day, oral, in the morning. Start at 10 mg and titrate up based on response and bloodwork at 8-12 weeks. Most women don't need more than 25 mg
• Men, general low-dose replacement: 25-50 mg/day, oral, in the morning. Men typically need a higher dose to move levels meaningfully because conversion is more diffuse. Start at 25 mg
• Adrenal insufficiency or measurably very low DHEA-S with symptoms: 25-50 mg/day in women, 50 mg/day in men. This is the dose used in most clinical trials for Addison's and depression
• Women preparing for IVF with poor ovarian response: 75 mg/day, split into 25 mg three times daily, for 6-16 weeks before cycle. Run under the care of a fertility specialist, not solo
• Postmenopausal vaginal atrophy: intravaginal DHEA (prasterone) 6.5 mg as a suppository, once daily at bedtime. This is the prescription product (Intrarosa) and acts locally with minimal systemic absorption. Better tolerated than oral DHEA for women whose symptoms are mainly vaginal
• Timing: Take in the morning. DHEA naturally peaks in the morning and dosing this way matches the diurnal rhythm. Evening dosing can cause mild stimulation that interferes with sleep in some people
• With or without food: Either works. Fat with the dose may marginally improve absorption since DHEA is lipophilic
• What not to do: Don't take 100+ mg/day as a "natural testosterone booster" if you're a healthy young man. You'll mostly raise oestrogen, suppress your own DHEA production through feedback, and accomplish nothing useful. If you want higher testosterone, get bloodwork and consider whether actual TRT is the right call
• 7-keto-DHEA (no page yet, flag this) is a metabolite that doesn't convert to sex hormones. It's marketed for thermogenesis and weight loss with weak evidence. It's a different compound from DHEA and not a substitute if you want the hormonal effects

Here's what you can expect:

In the right context (low baseline DHEA-S, symptoms of low mood, energy, libido, or skin quality), you should notice gradual improvements in mood and sense of well-being within 2-4 weeks, with skin, libido, and energy changes building over 2-3 months. The effect is restorative rather than stimulating. It's not a hit you feel, it's more that the floor of your daily energy and mood comes up a notch.