My mother (type 2 diabetes, 90 years old, who lost weight on Bernstein and who just does low calorie now) says that what got her weight loss going was not only Bernstein but DHEA. She told me that she took 10 mg a day. (This is the first I have heard of it.) I did a search on DHEA and weight loss and came up with this URL:

http://www.naturalnews.com/008953_D...se_obesity.html

Does anyone here have any knowledge or opinion on taking it for weight loss?

It seems that DHEA suppresses cortisol when the body produces too much, and cortisol can prevent weight loss when stess levels are high. Therefore, if someone has too much cortisol from being overstressed, then there is a good chance DHEA can help, otherwise I think not. I don't have on hand any studies to back this up, but I'm sure it's true.

Thanks. I am going to ask the doc for a DHEA blood test and one for melatonin, too. Then will try a light dose if they come back low. I go back next week and will find out my fasting blood glucose and hormonal levels.

Only take melatonin at night when you're going to be in the dark. You probably already know that!

Every time I take DHEA my period stops coming. I'm close to menopause so perhaps that has something to do with it.

DHEA messes with hormones which,in some cases,
is not a good thing.
Eddie

Thanks for all your comments. I know that you should take melatonin at night, and a few months ago I put "bandaids" over any electronic devices that had a night glow, a tiny green light on the tv, etc. just because I find that I like the room as dark as I can make it at night, but might have to do even more to darken the room if I take melatonin. I am already on hormones for 8 years now, bioidentical, and I will keep taking them. Anyone who wants to hear the positive side of using replacement hormones see Suzanne Sommers books on them. I have my hormones measured from time to time, but you can pretty much tell if you are getting the right amount, just from experience with them over the years. At any rate, I appreciate all your comments. I think we are all trying to find the best way to live a healthy life and we all bring worthwhile experiences to share. The older I get, the more readily I listen to the other point of view. You are never too old to learn. If I do start taking DHEA it will be under the supervision of a doctor and after my levels are measured. Same with melatonin.

Opps, I should have mentioned that some people do have issues with regular DHEA, but there is a type called 7 Keto DHEA that works well with cortisol stress weight gain, but has far less other sides. That is the preferred way to go to help with weight.

Well I guess this is one reason why we are on this forum...to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others, and to try to help people with our own observations. Thanks for the tip on the keto version of DHEA. I will definitely look into that.

7-keto didn't do a thing for me. At least, nothing that I could detect.

Nancy,

That's the problem with many weight loss supps. They are very specific. I take kelp for the boost to my thyroid levels, and it's helpful to me. For many people it would not help at all.

I'm not sure what it is but it always seems like supplements never have any obvious results on me. Oh, I know D3 is important, so I take that. But it didn't change anything. I've messed around with quite a few and am currently taking around 10 different supplements. I do it entirely on faith that something good is happening, other than stimulating someone's economy.

Nancy, I was like you about supplements until vitamin D changed my life, and then I became a believer, but as tuberman said, supplements may be beneficial more to some than to others. I mentioned somewhere on this forum, I believe, that I got a cold every month or so and with the supplementation of D3 at 4,000 iu's a day that changed to no colds, and it's over 6 months. Now I am taking my fish oil (1 tsp. Carlson), kelp (500 mg) tabs, glucosamine (1,000 iu's) and my D every single day. Some of the results may not be detectable to me, but now I am a believer. What is starting to get to me is that I have not lost any appreciable weight, even though my carb consumption is nearly nil (no wheat, no potatoes, no beans, no sugar, no pasta, no cereal) and my calorie load is not high. I will eat papaya from my garden (I get a small one off the plant every week or so) and the last of my avacados is sitting on my counter. I do eat salad (low carb or no carb dressing) and veggies (but not starchy ones or carrots). I went off any wine for a while, but find that hard to do, so I have added either two glasses of red wine or one small scotch per evening. I have added a small amount of exercise (my three wheel bike), but even that is hard because of the terrible pain in soft tissue around my back going down to my hip. The doc says it is not the joint. I am going to add magnesium as a transdermal supplement, just ordered it. I can't take it orally, and I think it was Hutchinson who recommended transdermal, a good idea. That is supposed to help with inflamation. I ran out of boswellia but am not sure it was contributing that much to pain relief. I gave up naproxen a couple of months ago.

Nancy, Eddie, Tuberman... well, I did indeed try the 7 keto DHEA at a dose of 25 mg. I took one on Thursday, skipped Friday, then took another one on Saturday. The next day, Sunday, I started bleeding, and I had been period free for about 7 years! Sunday was yesterday. I am on bio-identical hormone replacement already, and that must have boosted me over the top. Lucky me... as if I don't have enough going on. I did make an apointment with the doctor, but hopefully by that time it will have stopped (2 weeks). I also have stopped my bio-identicals until this stops. Moral of the story: with my experience (powerful and good) with vitamin D, and now this with only two doses of 7 keto DHEA, you have to be very careful with supplements. On the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Thanks for all your input, all of you.

P. S. I am back down to 158, and now I know I can't drink any wine any longer. I had slipped back to having one or two glasses of wine with dinner, and gained back so there is no question. Some people can drink and loose, and other people can't. Now we have tea at cocktail hour on the lanai instead of wine. I'm sure we'll get used to it!

I'm so glad to see someone else say that!!

The only exception for me was a B Complex. I suspect metformin had created a B-12 deficiency, and with it, a despair set in, but once I started to supplement, I returned to my more usual optimistic self.

And I've started on a much higher dose of D3 as a result of reading this forum, but the rest of it... I'm with Nancy. It's all faith that it's doing me some good because so many people say it should.