The prohormone, Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), protects the heart via numerous mechanisms, according to recent research.

Working with human samples obtained during cardiac catheterizations, researchers compared levels of DHEA and the adrenal hormone, aldosterone. Samples taken from patients with heart failure featured measurable aldosterone, but no DHEA. Normal control subjects, on the other hand, were found to secrete DHEA, but not aldosterone in cardiac tissues.

“We postulated that DHEA and/or its metabolites exert a cardioprotective action through [suppression of heart enlargement] effects,” researchers conclude in the journal Circulation.

Scientists at Virginia Polytechnic Institute further examined DHEA’s cardioprotective effects. Working with both human and bovine endothelial cells harvested from the aorta, they conducted tissue culture experiments, which demonstrated that

“…DHEA, at physiological concentrations, inhibited serum deprivation-included apoptosis [cell death] of both bovine and human vascular endothelial cells.” They conclude “this suggests that DHEA may be a pro-survival factor for the vascular endothelium.”

-Dale Keifer
January 2009 ~ Life Extension

1. Nakamura S, Yoshimura M, Nakayama M, et al. Possible association of heart failure status with synthetic balance between aldosterone and Dehydroepiandrosterone in human heart. Circulation. 2004 Sept 28;110(13): 1787-93.

2. Liu D, Si H, Reynolds KA, Zhen W, Jia Z, Dillion JS. Dehydroepiandrosterone protects vascular endotherlial cells against apoptosis through a Galphai protein-dependent activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt regulation of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 expression. Endocrinology. 2007 Jul;148 (7):3068-76