DHEA: Ignore the Hype

News reports have called DHEA "the mother of all hormones." A new book calls it a "superhormone." On the Internet, it's billed as the "fountain of youth hormone."

In the court of media and public opinion, DHEA is king, a pill that can help us live longer, lose weight or gain it, prevent cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's, and combat AIDS and other infectious diseases. The crescendo of praise for this hormone has drowned out the serious cautions that top researchers in the field are raising:

"The one thing you should tell your readers is that we know very little about DHEA. The hype is out of control, and I can't stress enough that it should be used with caution, if at all, until we know more," says Samuel Yen, MD, professor of reproductive medicine at the University of California, San Diego. News reports and advertisements widely cite his studies of people who took DHEA supplements for three months as proof that the hormone "works."

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