DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone)

DHEA is one of the few things on a supplement shelf that's genuinely a hormone — your adrenal glands make it, and your body uses it as raw material to build testosterone and oestrogen. Because levels fall with age, it got rebranded as an anti-aging, energy and libido booster you can buy without a prescription in the US. The evidence doesn't back that up: well-run trials giving healthy older adults 50–100 mg a day for up to two years found no clear gains in muscle, body composition or metabolic health. Meanwhile the downsides are exactly what you'd expect from taking a sex-hormone precursor: acne and oily skin, hair loss, and in women extra facial hair and a deepening voice that may not reverse; a drop in protective HDL cholesterol; mood disturbance and, in susceptible people, mania; and a real concern about feeding hormone-sensitive cancers like breast and prostate at higher or longer doses. It's also banned in all sport by WADA. One myth worth killing: DHEA supplements are synthesised in a lab — eating yams or soy does not raise your DHEA, whatever the label implies. There is a legitimate medical use — supervised replacement for diagnosed adrenal insufficiency, and a prescription vaginal form — but that's a doctor's decision after testing, not a self-serve anti-aging hack. ORIA's verdict: treat this as a medication that wandered into the supplement aisle, and don't take it without medical guidance.