DHEA dosage and evidence
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
The short answer
DHEA's levels drop with age, and that is the main reason people take it. It has been tested many times in people, and it mostly did not help, outside two specific groups.
Evidence grade for DHEA: Moderate. The rule: at least one finished study in people, and at least 100 people who took it. The sum on this page: 3 completed trials, 267 people given it. A grade counts how much has been done to people, not whether it works.
- People given it
- 267
- Human studies
- 3
- Found nothing
- 1
Dose
No human dose established
Amounts that were given in studies sit in Human evidence on this page. None of them is a personal dose.
3 completed trials, 267 people given it
5 effects reported, 4 unwanted, 1 wanted, by people using it, not a trial
Goal pages: Fat loss and metabolism, Muscle and strength, Brain, memory and mood, Hormones and growth hormone, Heart and circulation, Bone and joints, Sleep
In plain English
In plain English, from Aaron
This is how I would explain it to a friend. The evidence, with the numbers, is further down the page.
DHEA is a hormone your adrenal glands make. Your body turns it into testosterone and estrogen. Levels drop with age, so it is sold as an anti-ageing pill. It is a supplement in the US, but prescription only in the UK, Australia and Canada.
What people take it for
- Slowing ageing.
- More energy and sex drive.
- Raising testosterone.
- Stronger bones.
What studies in people showed
The biggest study gave 144 older people with low levels DHEA or a dummy pill for two years. The hormone went up. Body shape, strength, fitness, blood sugar control and quality of life did not get better. In 99 frail older women who also exercised, legs got a little stronger, but bones did not change. In 24 women whose glands make none, it helped mood and sexual interest. As a vaginal insert, it is approved for painful sex after menopause.
What people report
Reports, not study results
The good
- People say pharmacy-made DHEA sits better with them than store capsules at a similar amount.
The bad
- Some people report feeling no difference at all.
- Tiredness and grogginess are the most common complaints, mostly at higher amounts.
- It can turn into estrogen in men, and some say it lowered their testosterone. People test rather than guess.
- Oily skin, acne, hair thinning and breast changes in some men. More face and body hair in women.
Where these come from: Forum patterns from ExcelMale and LongeCity threads, read in September 2026. These are not from a study. The study results are from the papers on this page.
My bottom line
A hormone dropping with age is not a reason to swallow it. Test your blood first. If a number is actually low, that is a conversation with a doctor, not the supplement aisle.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
What it has been measured to do
Measured in people
Goals DHEA has been tested for in people, biggest studies first. We count only what the studies on this page say, so the real numbers may be higher.
- Bone strength243 people · 2 studies · 1 found nothing
- Mood and anxiety168 people · 2 studies · 1 found nothing
- Testosterone and male hormones168 people · 2 studies · 1 found nothing
- Getting stronger144 people · 1 study · 1 found nothing
- Blood sugar and insulin144 people · 1 study · 1 found nothing
- Cholesterol and blood fats24 people · 1 study
What people using it report
Real people telling you what happened to them. Nobody checked it, and the people who post are not a fair sample, so it cannot prove anything works. It is still the best guide on this page to what people actually do with DHEA, what they expect, and what goes wrong. The full account, including the negative reports, is below.
28 of the 36 indexed goals have no study of any kind behind DHEA
No study in people, animals or cells on this page reports a result for these. That does not prove DHEA does nothing for them. It does mean anything you have heard about DHEA and one of these did not come from a study cited here.
Show full evidence
What is DHEA?
DHEA's levels drop with age, and that is the main reason people take it. It has been tested many times in people, and it mostly did not help, outside two specific groups.
DHEA is the most common steroid hormone in your blood. Levels drop steeply from your twenties on. That is why it became the first anti-ageing hormone pill. It is also the clearest case on this site of a pattern the site argues against. A hormone drops with age, so replacing it should reverse ageing, so sell it.
It has been tested a lot. The biggest study gave 144 older men and women with low levels DHEA or a dummy pill for two years. The hormone went up. Body shape, strength, fitness, blood sugar control and quality of life did not get better. A review also pooled studies on bone strength in healthy adults. That is the result the ageing argument predicts most directly, and the results were far weaker than the theory.
Where it does help is narrow. As a vaginal insert called prasterone, it is an approved prescription for painful sex caused by thinning of the vagina after menopause. It works locally, not through the whole body. In a small study of 24 women whose adrenal glands make none, replacing it helped mood and sexual interest. It also has a role in some fertility treatments.
Unlike the other three drugs on this list, it is sold as a supplement in the United States. That makes it the one most people can buy without seeing a doctor.
How does DHEA work?
DHEA is a steroid made mainly by the adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys. It does very little on its own. Mostly, the body's tissues turn it into testosterone and then estrogen. That step is the whole story and the whole problem. How much each person converts, and into which hormone, depends on their own tissues. So the same pill gives very different hormone levels in different people. In women it raises testosterone much more than in men. The vaginal insert gets turned into active hormones right in that tissue, with little reaching the rest of the body. That is a different treatment from swallowing a pill.
What have studies in people found about DHEA?
Tested a lot as an anti-ageing pill, with weak results. Separately approved for one local use, where how it is given is the point.
- 144 older men and women with low levels took DHEA or a dummy pill for two years. The hormone went up. Body shape, strength, fitness, blood sugar control and quality of life did not improve. Bone density went up slightly at one spot in men and one in women.
- 99 frail older women took DHEA or a dummy pill for six months, and everyone also did gentle exercise. The DHEA group got a little stronger in the legs. Bone density did not change.
- 24 women whose adrenal glands make no DHEA took it for four months and a dummy pill for four months. On DHEA, mood and sexual interest got better.
- A review pooled studies on bone strength in healthy adults, the result the ageing argument predicts most directly.
- Prasterone, DHEA given as a vaginal insert, is approved in the US for painful sex caused by thinning of the vagina after menopause. It acts locally, which is different from a pill.
- It is used in some fertility treatments, where the proof is disputed, not settled.
- The same pill gives very different hormone levels in different people, and much more testosterone in women than in men.
- It is banned in sport.
- It is prescription-only in the UK, Australia and Canada, and sold freely as a supplement in the US. That is a striking split for the same molecule.
What this does not tell you: The general anti-ageing case is the weakest part and has had the most testing. That combination tells you a lot. Because the effect depends on how each person's body converts it, group averages may hide people who respond and people who do not. No test tells you which you are. Women should know that a DHEA pill raises testosterone much more in them than in men. So male traits are a real risk, not a theory. And the proof for the approved vaginal insert does not carry over to swallowing a supplement.
What do people who took DHEA report?
This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.
- Doses described start around 5 to 25 mg daily, with some people going to 50 mg and a few higher, and the repeated advice from experienced posters is to start well below the amount typically sold in a retail capsule.
- Fatigue and grogginess are reported more than anything else, and specifically at the higher end. The workarounds people describe are moving the dose to the evening or lowering it, and the reports conflict directly: some describe morning dosing causing grogginess, others describe evening dosing causing insomnia.
- The body turning it into other hormones is the worry raised most, and it is described as going in both directions. Posters report that it can raise oestradiol in men and, less intuitively, that it can suppress testosterone in some, which is repeatedly offered as a reason to test rather than assume.
- Breast tissue changes and hair thinning are reported by individuals, alongside oily skin, acne, scalp itching and increased sweating. In women, increased facial and body hair is the effect named.
- Reports of feeling no difference at all are present and are not treated as unusual.
- Product quality is a distinct theme: people describe tolerating pharmacy-dispensed material better than retail capsules at similar amounts, and attribute that to formulation or purity rather than to dose.
- The recurring framing from the more experienced posters is that the warnings printed on the bottle require far larger amounts than anyone here is taking, which is an argument made inside the community rather than a finding, and it sits awkwardly next to the side effects the same threads report.
Sources: DHEA safety, dosing and side effect threads on ExcelMale, plus supplement threads on LongeCity, found by site-restricted search and read in September 2026. Nothing above is attributed to any specific post and no post is reproduced.
The state of the research
DHEA is the model for a mistake this site sees again and again. It is worth naming, because the same thinking is being used on newer molecules right now.
The argument goes like this. The substance is plentiful when you are young. It drops steeply with age. The drop goes along with things that get worse with age. So putting it back should fix those things. It sounds right, and it has been wrong often enough that it should be treated as a guess, not a conclusion. Growth hormone went the same way. Melatonin, partly. Testosterone only partly escaped because someone finally ran a study in 5,246 men.
What survived for DHEA is telling. It was not the whole-body anti-ageing use that drove all the research. It was a vaginal insert for one menopause symptom, where how it is given is the whole idea. That is usually how these stories end when they end well.
One rules point worth keeping in mind. The same molecule is a freely sold supplement in the United States and a prescription-only medicine in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Regulators looking at the same proof came to opposite answers about whether people should be able to buy it without a doctor.
The evidence, in charts
Fig. 1a · how many people
267people, across 3 studies in people cited here
| Study | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| The New England Journal of Medicine 2006 | 144 | 54% |
| Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 2010 | 99 | 37% |
| The New England Journal of Medicine 1999 | 24 | 9% |
One study holds 54% of these people, so the total rests more on one study than its size suggests. Counts are the number of people each study on this page says it signed up. That includes studies that only watched people and gave nobody the compound. Studies still signing people up are left out, and only studies cited on this page are counted.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
3 of 4 sources here are studies in people. The rest is not.
- Study in people · done in people375%
- Review of studies · sums up other studies125%
Counted from the list of sources on this page. It counts only what we cite, so there may be more studies out there. A review counts once, however many studies it sums up.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
The studies cover 4 different years, 1999 to 2019, counted from the list of sources on this page. The newest source on file is from 2019, more than five years ago. Research on it may have gone quiet.
Fig. 3 · legal status at a glance
US
Not approved
UK
Approved
AU
Prescription
CA
Prescription
Approved in 1 of 4, by prescription in 2, not approved in 1. This is what the law says, not a verdict on the science. See Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 4 · how much does what
Nobody has tested different amounts in people
This chart would show how the effect changes as the amount goes up. For this compound, nobody has measured that in people. So we leave it empty. We will not borrow an animal chart and pretend it works the same in people.
Fig. 5 · what the molecule is
- Kind of compound
- Hormone
- Molecule weight
- 288.4 Da. A steroid, not a peptide.
- Half-life
- About 15 hoursMedium, 6 to 24 hours
- Chain length
- None on file
Half-life as stated on file: Short for DHEA itself, a few hours. The sulphate form circulates far longer, around 10 to 20 hours, and is what laboratories usually measure.
No amino acid sequence is on file for DHEA, which is expected: a hormone is not built from amino acids.
The studies we cite
- Study in people2006DHEA in elderly women and DHEA or testosterone in elderly men.
The biggest study of DHEA against a dummy pill as an anti-ageing supplement found nothing that mattered. 144 older men and women with low levels took it for two years. The hormone went up and little else changed. Body shape, strength, fitness, blood sugar control and quality of life did not get better. Bone density went up slightly at one spot in men and one in women. These were healthy volunteers with low levels, not patients.
144 people, 87 men and 57 women aged 60 or over with low DHEA-S, randomised double-blind to 2 years of oral DHEA, testosterone (men only) or placebo. DHEA raised serum DHEA-S by a median 3.4 mcg/mL in men and 3.8 in women. No significant effect on body composition, peak oxygen uptake, muscle strength, insulin sensitivity or quality of life. Small gains in bone density at the femoral neck in men and the ultradistal radius in women. No major adverse effects.
- Study in people1999Dehydroepiandrosterone replacement in women with adrenal insufficiency.
In women whose adrenal glands make no DHEA, replacing it helped mood and sexual interest. 24 women took DHEA for four months and a dummy pill for four months. It is a study of people who lack the hormone, not of ageing.
24 women with adrenal insufficiency given 50 mg oral DHEA daily for 4 months and placebo for 4 months in random order, double-blind crossover. DHEA restored serum DHEA, DHEA-S, androstenedione and testosterone to the normal range; SHBG, total and HDL cholesterol fell. Global severity index change -0.18 on DHEA versus +0.03 on placebo (p=0.02); depression and anxiety scores and sexual thoughts, interest and satisfaction improved versus placebo.
- Study in people2010Dehydroepiandrosterone combined with exercise improves muscle strength and physical function in frail older women.
Frail older women given DHEA along with gentle exercise got a little stronger in the legs. Bone density did not change over six months. Small and short. Everyone exercised, so this compares DHEA plus exercise against exercise alone.
99 frail women, mean age 76.6, with low DHEA-S and low bone mass, randomised double-blind to 50 mg DHEA daily or placebo for 6 months, all on calcium, vitamin D and twice-weekly exercise; 87 completed. Bone mineral density and bone turnover markers were flat. Lower extremity strength rose from 459 to 484 N (p=0.01) and Short Physical Performance Battery score from 10.1 to 10.7 (p=0.02) on DHEA.
- Review of studies2019A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials of DHEA supplementation of bone mineral density in healthy adults
A review that pooled studies of DHEA against a dummy pill for bone strength in healthy adults. If putting back a hormone that drops with age really works, bone is where it should show up. So this is the right test of the general anti-ageing case.
Pooled randomised placebo-controlled evidence on the endpoint the age-decline argument most directly predicts. Bone density is where a replaced androgen precursor should show up if the reasoning holds, which makes this the right test of the general supplementation case rather than of a specific indication.
Common questions
Has DHEA been tested in people?
Yes. 267 people given it across 3 completed trials cited here, 1 of which found nothing. DHEA's levels drop with age, and that is the main reason people take it. It has been tested many times in people, and it mostly did not help, outside two specific groups.
What is the DHEA dosage?
No human dose established. Amounts that were given in studies sit in Human evidence on this page. None of them is a personal dose. 3 completed trials, 267 people given it
Is DHEA FDA-approved?
Sold as a dietary supplement in the United States. Separately, prasterone, the drug form of DHEA, is an FDA-approved prescription vaginal insert. It treats moderate to severe pain during sex caused by thinning vaginal tissue after menopause. It is banned in sport by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Does DHEA slow ageing?
The idea is that levels drop steeply with age. The testing has not matched the idea. The biggest study, in 144 older people over two years, found no gains in body shape, strength, fitness, blood sugar control or quality of life. A review also pooled studies on bone strength in healthy adults, the result the ageing argument predicts most directly. The anti-ageing case is the most tested and least supported part of this hormone's record.
What is it actually approved for?
As prasterone, a vaginal insert for moderate to severe painful sex caused by thinning of the vagina after menopause. How it is given is the key. The hormone turns into active forms right in that tissue, with little reaching the rest of the body. That approval does not back swallowing a pill.
Why do different countries treat it so differently?
Because they came to opposite answers from the same proof. It is a freely sold supplement in the United States and a prescription-only medicine in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. If you thought being a supplement meant a regulator had judged it safe to use on your own, three other regulators disagree.
Is it different for women?
Yes, in a way that matters. The body turns DHEA into other hormones, and a DHEA pill raises testosterone much more in women than in men. Acne, extra hair and a deeper voice are real risks, not theories. A deeper voice, in particular, does not go back.
Will it show up on a drug test?
Yes. It is banned in sport, and being a supplement in the United States does not change that.