Does anyone use pregnenolone?

[nothuman]

I had my levels of DHEA-S and pregnenolone tested a while back and both were on the low end of normal for my age. I first supplemented with 25mg DHEA only and it raised my DHEA-S level from low 200s to mid 300s.

Then I bought a combo supplement of both DHEA and pregnenolone 25mg of each and got blood levels tested. I was very surprised to see my pregnenolone LOWERED from 42 to 20, and my DHEA-S got even higher to mid 500s.

Started researching how this could happen and found pregnenolone converts to DHEA (and also progesterone, cortisol, etc.), so that could explain the jump in DHEA. What it doesn't explain, however, is how supplementing with pregnenolone could lower my blood level of pregnenolone.

Makes me wonder if the supplement is a scam and only DHEA in a high dose, or this is a normal thing that could happen. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[pickapeck]

Could be but also could be that the lyase or hydroxylase were activated in the presence of higher pregnenolone or that 3 beta HSD was activated to give more progesterone. Steroid synthesis is a complex set of pathways with feedback and allosterism so hard to know exactly. Pregnenolone is the mother of all steroid biosynthesis being just downstream from cholesterol so it feeds into multiple pathways. It's probably not just simply le Chatlier's principle.

 

[Fa Seeshus]

Some argue that pregnenolone is better used transdermally. I feel it more that way, will have it checked when I do bloods next month.

 

[nothuman]

I decided to stop using the combo of DHEA and pregnenolone for now. Both can raise estrogen, which can raise hematocrit and pregnenolone can raise DHT, which is also linked to a hematocrit increase. The effects may be mild but I'm probably better off just seeing if it helps my hematocrit issue.