Research

Hormonal

Long-term DHEA replacement (50 mg/day) improves psychological well-being (specifically the 'role emotional' dimension of SF-36) in patients with primary adrenal insufficiency, but does not significantly improve fatigue, cognitive function, or sexual function.

For people with Addison's disease, DHEA might help with emotional well-being and feeling like you can handle daily roles, but don't expect it to fix fatigue or memory problems. It's a targeted treatment for a specific hormonal lack.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
one subscale of SF-36 improved significantly (P < 0.004) after DHEA treatment. There was no significant benefit of DHEA treatment on fatigue or cognitive or sexual function.
Eleanor Gurnell et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2007

Why this rating

RCT design, clear statistical significance for one psychological metric, but null for others.

Source

Long-Term DHEA Replacement in Primary Adrenal Insufficiency: A Randomized, Controlled Trial

Eleanor Gurnell et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2007

DOI 10.1210/jc.2007-1134

rct · n=106Cited 188×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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