This video will look at How Do I Lower DHEA Levels via Cortisol. Many people are asking me, how do i lower DHEA levels? This is a first in multiple articles on how to go about lowering DHEA levels.  We will talk about specific tactics you can do to lower your DHEA levels in each video. Many times high DHEA levels are a sign that you have other things going on If you haven't been checked out for PCOS and things like this, you should be evaluated further for this. 
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The approach to lower your DHEA levels will vary based on the reason that it is high to begin with.  Your body is a complex system of overlapping layers of feedback inhibition.  By feedback inhibition we mean one thing causes something which then feeds back to inhibit the same thing that caused it. Understanding your particular system takes patience lots of testing and clinical experience.   With that in mind we will narrow the focus and I will  explain how i would approach lowering DHEA.  Also not that when i say DHEA i'm referring to DHEA sulfate (DHEA-s). 

Overall the idea here is that there's either too much DHEA-s coming in or not enough coming out.   Either one can offset the flux of DHEA leading to higher DHEA levels.  In this article we are going to look at the different things that are known to influence that which is coming in. Other videos will look at the things that influence what goes out.  One important note about high DHEA levels is that congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is a genetic disorder often presents with elevated DHEA-s levels.  With this condition the enzyme that breaks down DHEA and turns it into androsteindione is defective. This enzyme is referred to as 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase.  There are some other (non congenital adrenal hyperplasia)  things that can go on with this enzyme that leads to elevated DHEA levels.  So depending on how high your levels are you may need to look into seeing an endocrinologist.  This is a good idea in general to see what they have to say. The first thing that we want to talk about is the amount of DHEA that's coming in and where it comes from.  One of the things that influences this is stress.  You may have suspected this or heard this and here we are going to go into more detail on how this occurs and what you can do about it.  Each time cortisol is produced DHEA is also produced.  This is because in the brain there's a hormone called ACTH which stimulates the adrenal glands.  At the same time it stimulates cortisol it also stimulates DHEA production. Those two hormones are almost coupled together.  You can't have one without the other.  So the more stress you present with, the more DHEA-s production you're going to get.  So the first step in figuring out if this is something that's relevant to your situation is to check your cortisol levels.  You already know your DHEA-s is high but why is it high?  If your cortisol levels are elevated this suggests it could be at least part or one of the causes

Now one cortisol test is not going to tell you definitively that that's the cause.  However if you have multiple samples that are showing you are above the normal or close to the normal upper end of the reference range, this does suggest it is the cause.  There are different ways to check cortisol too.  There is morning am cortisol.  There is random serum cortisol and there is 24 hour urine tests.  There are also salivary tests, but I don't use these very much so I won't comment much on them. 

If your cortisol is in the upper range, that does suggest this is a contributing factor. You should check multiple times because cortisol can be quite variable and can change from day to day depending on what's going on,   what you've eaten etc. Serum cortisol levels for most labs around 16 or higher would be in the upper range with 20 mg/dl being high.  So now that you have a high test, what are we going to do about it?
Lower DHEA-s By Lowering Cortisol 

Keep in mind,  if your cortisol is high based on testing that's one thing.  If you don't know your cortisol is high, these suggestions may actually hinder your progress.  Don't go off of a feeling of stress and assume you have high cortisol.  You should check to know and also check with your doctor to make sure none of these things are going to interfere with anything.  Generally these things are very safe.  The first one to mention that can lower cortisol mention is Ashwagandha.   Ashwagandha is in a category of herbs called adrenal adaptogens.  There's multiple herbs that are in this category but Ashwagandha seems to be quite favorable.  People respond well to it and do not have problems with it. Adaptogenic herbs work by balancing out the activity that they work on.  In this case it is the adrenal glands and cortisol.