Ray Peat on pregnenolone

"A lifetime of accumulating PUFA progressively degrades the liver’s protective functions, but those functions can gradually be restored by providing carbohydrates and saturated fats without the polyunsaturated fats, along with some of the factors that have been depleted along with free cholesterol, especially pregnenolone and progesterone."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone is the precursor (following acetate and cholesterol) for all of the other steroid hormones, so it can be used in men. It (or its precursor, pregnenolone) has been used for prostatitis, arthritis, and infertility in men. Large amounts, though, would probably suppress LH, and lower testosterone synthesis, but a smaller amount (especially in old men) seems to increase sperm count and motility. In male and female athletes who become infertile, it would seem to be the appropriate therapy, generally in combination with thyroid."

- Nutrition For Women

"Taking progesterone reliably increases the brain content of allopregnanolone, with a small oral dose of progesterone tripling (196% increase) the concentration of allopregnanolone (Andréen, et al., 2006). Supplementing pregnenolone also increases allopregnanolone."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol is the precursor to pregnenolone, progesterone, and the other neurosteroids, and its own properties include stabilizing effects similar to progesterone’s."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the most important factors that can be optimized with existing resources. Healthier pregnancies will result in healthier and happier postpartum life. Some of these factors would be sunlight, vitamin D, milk, cheese, eggs, fruits and well cooked vegetables, fibrous foods, and optimizing thyroid function and pregnenolone and progesterone (which support mitochondrial function, protecting against aldosterone, parathyroid hormone, excess serotonin, CRK, and cortisol, besides increasing allopregnanolone), and using the safest antiinflammatory and antiserotonin drugs, such as aspirin and cyproheptadine, when they are needed."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The fact that progesterone (and probably pregnenolone) stimulates its own synthesis means that taking it does not suppress the bodys ability to synthesize it, as happens with cortisol. Sometimes, one dose or a few doses can restore the bodys ability to produce enough of its own."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"The brain contains much more pregnenolone, DHEA, and progesterone than do other organs or the blood, and these levels decrease progressively with age."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"People who studied the effects of steroids on aging skin found that the steroids which reversed structural age changes in the skin (progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone) sometimes restored hair growth"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Since DHEA can be easily metabolized into testosterone (by the skin, for example), and into estrogen, I dont think it should ever be administered alone, without an approximately natural balance of pregnenolone and progesterone."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Pregnenolone is the material the body uses to form either progesterone or DHEA. Other natural hormones, including DHEA, havent been studied for so long, but the high levels which are normally present in healthy people would suggest that replacement doses, to restore those normal levels, would not be likely to produce toxic side effects."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Thyroid and pregnenolone and vitamin E are as important for male fertility as thyroid and progesterone and vitamin E are for female fertility. (For example, supplementary thyroid and pregnenolone can raise a mans sperm count, by overcoming the effects of stress.)"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"If we optimize the known factors which improve energy production (red light, short-chain and medium-chain saturated fats, and pregnenolone, for example), to the extent that our metabolism resembles that of a ten year old child, I dont think there is any reason to suppose that we wouldnt have the regenerative, healing abilities which are common at that age. I suspect that both brain growth and remodeling might proceed indefinitely."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Since the protective hormones depend on the ability of mitochondria to convert cholesterol into pregnenolone, it is clear that damage to mitochondria will affect our supply of protective hormones at the same time that our energy supply is failing, forcing us to shift to the atrophy-producing stress hormones, including cortisol."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Thyroid tends to lower cholesterol by converting it into pregnenolone and other steroids,"

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Pregnenolone doesnt have the direct hormonal effects, but its the precursor, and by stopping exaggerated stress reactions it is likely to help"

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Pregnenolone isnt a hormone, but it normalizes the steroid hormones, preventing excess cortisol and helping to normalize aldosterone, so it should be helpful for any stress including surgery. P"

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"The neuroprotective steroids, progesterone and pregnenolone, and magnestum and carbon dioxide all protect against excitoxicity and the related excess of intracellular calcium, while promoting normal calcification."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The safest and most effective interventions will be those which support our basic. organizational fields (sodium, carbon dioxide, balanced proteins, fruits, thyroid, pregnenolone, for example), and dont introduce distortions, as some drugs, foods, hormones, and supplements do."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 2

"The active thyroid hormone, T3, declines with aging, and this necessarily lowers production of pregnenolone and progesterone."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone and pregnenolone also decline in aging men."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The other anti-catabolic steroids, pregnenolone, progesterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), are present in larger amounts, and are of more general importance, than testosterone, especially in the brain, where their concentration is very high."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"here are several systems that oppose the toxic effects of adrenalin. GABA, dopamine, and adenosine have multiple anti-adrenergic effects. In many situations, the parasympathetic system is protective against adrenalin. The protective steroids also act at many levels. Magnesium, retained in the ce)l largely under the influence of ATP and thyroid, is our basic calcium blocker, or calcium antagonist. GABA and dopamine inhibit the ACTH-glucccorticoid system, and shift the steroid balance toward the protective anti-glucocorticoids, progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, and DHEA."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Bacterial endotoxin inhibits mitochondrial respiration, and this respiration is needed for the intramitochondrial conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"With aging, pregnenolone and its derivatives, progesterone and DHEA, decline sharply. The brain, the organ with the highest concentration of those stabilizing substances, has many systems for adapting to their decreasing concentration, but the immune system is probably less able to compensate for those aging changes."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The supplementation of pregnenolone, etc., will allow dietary vitamin A to be spared for other purposes, including regulation of mitosis, differentation, and oxidation."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"GABA-related metabolites, such as GHB, butyric acid, succinic acid, and the butyrobetaines, have multiple protective functions, including promotion of respiration and pregnenolone synthesis, regulating gene expression, and reducing damage from glucocorticoids."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Camphor, adamantanamine (amantadine, Symmetrel), and local anesthetics taken systemically, can help in withdrawal from stimulants. The conventional (200 mg.) dose of camphor and adamantanamine shouldn’t be exceeded. (The hormones thyroid, progesterone and pregnenolone alone are sometimes enough.)"

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Alkaloids are often active in modifying the water content of physical systems, as well as of cells. The alkaloids that are often used in treating PMS seem to favor improved oxygenation and elimination of edema. I suspect that these drugs, and the natural hormones progesterone and pregnenolone, act in the same direction as hyperosmolarity."

- 1991 - July - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the mitochondria are damaged, the protective steroid pregnenolone (which is made in the mitochondria from cholesterol) can’t be produced."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In young people, the brain contains a very high concentration of pregnenolone and its derivatives, DHEA and progesterone, all of which stabilize cells and protect against the effects of cortisol, but in old age these fall to about 5% of their normal concentration, leaving the brain exposed to the destructive action of cortisol."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the brain content of progesterone, pregnenolone and DHEA is normally 20 or 30 times higher than the serum concentration, and these hormones are protective against both estrogen and cortisone."

- 1991 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The existence of a few systems of positive feedback (self stimulation), however, indicates that in our fundamental structure we are biased in an expansive, upward direction. Progesterone (and its precursors, pregnenolone and cholesterol) and thyroid hormones participate in some of the important positive feedback systems, involving energy production, stress resistance, and brain growth."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Although one of the important functions of vitamin A is its involvement in the formation of the steroids pregnenolone and progesterone (both of which moderate the effects of cortisol), it also has some hormone like actions directly on the cells of the immune system, and it stimulates production of interleukin-2 and both inhibits generation of specific suppressor cells and limits the intensity of activation of suppressor cells."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Pregnenolone and progesterone have a vitamin A-sparing effect, besides their direct protective action for the thymus, and they also have the very general protective action which Selye called catatoxic. Both of these hormones have been effectively used to treat various autoimmune ailments. They tend to raise the body temperature and metabolic rate, yet they are anti-catabolic."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Within the mitochondria, a cytochrome P-450 converts cholesterol to pregnenolone. The loss of both energy and steroid hormones would have major consequences."

- 1989 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The fact that the body is well supplied with substances which —at a slightly higher concentration — are anesthetics, and which are depleted by the stresses which predispose to viral infections, suggests that they may normally have a camphor-like anti-viral activity. Some of these substances, the anesthetic steroids, have been found to prevent some viral infections,’ and they also have a wide range of anti-toxic effects.!® Pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, and pregnanediol are all good candidates as antiviral drugs, but etiocholanolone — which also produces fever!—is the most interesting of the group."

- 1988 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter