Ray Peat on progesterone

"Because it hasn’t been possible to provide evidence to support the idea that serotonin is a mood elevator happy hormone, the industry has looked for some way to explain the therapeutic benefit that they claim. They have generally settled on the idea that the SSRIs, after several weeks of use, increase the synthesis of the progesterone metabolite allopregnanolone, in the brain. That does happen, but the synthesis of those defensive steroids is also increased by any injury to the brain"

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the rising cholesterol had a defensive function. For example, when the amount of cholesterol flowing into an ovarian artery was increased, the amount of progesterone flowing out of an ovarian vein increased proportionally, as the raw material was converted to the product."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"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

"Milk provides lactose, which is metabolized quickly into glucose, and small amounts of other substances, including progesterone and thyroid hormone, that favor its efficient use."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Quantitatively, progesterone is the main female hormone, and progesterone improves brain structure and function."

- Nutrition For Women

"The primary male hormone, testosterone, has chemical and functional properties of both estrogen and progesterone; this combined function gives males a short-term stability (fewer goiters, migraines, etc.) but a lack of adaptiveness in the longer range (higher mortality in infancy and old age)."

- Nutrition For Women

"Anything which produces tissue atrophy will tend to produce cancer. The important question is, what will induce differentiation and useful function in cancer cells? There are many substances which promote differentiation and oppose the effects of estrogen, and some of these have been found to be useful in cancer therapy. Among the substances opposing estrogen are dopamine and nickel, prolactin inhibitors; chalones, the tissue specific proteins which inhibit cell division (and possibly more ephemerally, the peptides of memory); the aprotic solvents, DMF and possibly DMSO; progesterone and testosterone; thyroxin and iodine; magnesium ATP, the stable form of the biological energy molecule; vitamin A, a protein-sparing nutrient which promotes differentiation, and vitamin E (and the closely related coenzyme Q, or ubiquinone)."

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress will cause a rise in estrogen and a loss of anti estrogens such as thyroid, progesterone, and (in men) testosterone. Male apes who are bullied have decreased levels of testosterone, and this effect persists long after their environment has improved. The stress of subjugation seems to lead to an adaptation of passivity. Their passivity prevents further injury, but we dont know how stressful their continuing submission is."

- Nutrition For Women

"Energetically, the estrogen-dominated metabolic state is less efficient than the oxidative state which is dominated by thyroid and progesterone (or testosterone). The estrogen state, like the rats state of learned helplessness, is parasympathetic, in the sense that many chemical balances have moved away from the mobilized sympathetic or adrenergic state. The estrogen state, for example, depresses blood sugar, while the mobilized state spares glucose by oxidizing fat."

- Nutrition For Women

"The first time I took enough desiccated thyroid to make my heart speed noticeably, there was a pleasure pushing up from my abdomen through my chest, making me want to smile and laugh. When I have watched suicidal women using thyroid or progesterone, there is a transformation (under an hour with progesterone, a few hours or longer with thyroid) from weeping to smiling and laughing; they speak of unbearable pain being replaced by pleasure."

- Nutrition For Women

"Additionally, when the mothers general health is so poor that nutrition just during pregnancy cant overcome the lifelong deprivation, the use of hormones could keep the mother in good health during pregnancy, and act as a buffer between the fetus and the mothers metabolic instability. In some areas, thyroid hormone would be crucial. In every area, for a large percentage of women, progesterone can improve gestation."

- Nutrition For Women

"er pregnancy, progesterone would cost from $2 to $15. The difference between a passive person with an 85 IQ an d an independent person with a 130 IQ is very great; if all the children in a village could be so healthy, many aspects of the society would change."

- Nutrition For Women

"Progesterone is a direct antagonist of estrogen; Lipschuts (and Korenchevsky) have shown that progesterone causes regression of tumors induced by estrogen."

- Nutrition For Women

"Normally, the liver treats estrogen like a poison, removing it immediately from the body. If the liver gets sluggish from malnutrition or too much estrogen (or other damage), it can allow the hormone to build up to very high levels. Since estrogen is metabolically antagonistic to progesterone and testosterone, i think the pill might decrease libido by coun teracting these other hormones."

- Nutrition For Women

"infertility in mice is also associated with an increased ratio of estrogen to progesterone. My research showed that the probable mechanism by which estrogen excess causes infertility is through limiting the availability of oxygen."

- Nutrition For Women

"The most urgent need for progesterone therapy, I think, is in preventing a continuing epidemic of brain damage. Beyond that, many studies have found that the use of natural progesterone increases the childs IQ, typically by around 35 points (though there are claims of consistent 200 IQs), and produces personalities that are more independent, individualistic, selfassured, self-sufficient, and sensitive"

- Nutrition For Women

"This polar opposition of estrogen and progesterone also involves the polar antagonism of cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP, and to some extent a related antagonism of various prostaglandins (it has been suggested that this involves different populations of lysosomes, but I suspect it has to do with the superoxide dismutase enzyme system, and its inhibition or activation, since one of my assays to determine the action of estrogen turns out to be an inverse indicator of S.O.D. activity)."

- Nutrition For Women

"Although progesterone and cortisone both raise blood sugar and stabilize lysosomes, their effect on the brain is very different: in large doses, progesterone is sedative and anesthetic, while cortisone is stimulating, and cortisone causes changes in the brain which resemble aging."

- Nutrition For Women

"The dopamineserotonin antagonism (e.g., in the control of prolactin secretion) can be modified by progesterone, thyroid, and other factors."

- Nutrition For Women

"Pfeiffer has investigated the relationship of porphyria to certain forms of schizophrenia, but I dont think he has mentioned that a good dose of glucose, or of an anti-estrogen hormone, such as testosterone or progesterone, will make the symptoms go away,"

- Nutrition For Women

"Most of the known biochemistry of lithium happens to overlap the actions of progesterone, e.g., aldosterone antagonism. However, while lithium has an anti-thyroid action, progesterone supports secretion of thyroxine, and apparently inhibits the formation of reverse T3, that chemical blocks the action of thyroid hormone."

- Nutrition For Women

"While progesterone might seem to cure almost everything, we should be careful to use it only when the biochemical mechanism is fairly evident. A progesterone deficiency can be misdiagnosed, as (for example) epilepsy, Brights disease, multiple sclerosis, or even estrogen deficiency (as in menopause). It can affect susceptibility to many conditions including herpes infections, dizziness, dysperception, varicose veins, mastitis, fibroma, and endometriosis. Cyclic edema, depression, and migraine are, in my experience, always stopped by progesterone."

- Nutrition For Women

"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

"I have distributed about 25,000 doses of progesterone, and failure to use enough has been the most common problem."

- Nutrition For Women

"Since progesterone is not known to have any side effects except for alteration of the menstrual cycle and production of euphoria (until doses of several grams per day are reached, at which point its anesthetic property begins to appear), the basic procedure should be to use it in sufficient quantity to make the symptoms disappear, and to time its use so that menstrual cycles are not disrupted."

- Nutrition For Women

"An excessive estrogen/progesterone ratio is more generally involved than either a simple excess of estrogen or a deficiency of progesterone, but even this ratio is conditioned by other factors, including age, diet, other steroids, thyroid, and other hormones."

- Nutrition For Women

"Excess stress (by elevating estrogen and/or depleting progesterone, etc.) may bring on symptoms in someone who never had them. Spending a summer in Alaska, with an unusually long day, may relieve the symptoms of a chronic sufferer. Dark cloudy winters in England or the Pacific Northwest are powerful stressors, and cause lower progesterone in women and testosterone in men."

- Nutrition For Women

"Several of the known biochemical effects of lithium are similar to those of progesterone, including antagonism to aldosterone, modification of serotonin metabolism, elevation of nerve thresholds, and facilitated disposition of ammonia."

- Nutrition For Women

"Other psycho-active chemicals which have some overlap with progesterone are DOPA, bromocryptine,"

- Nutrition For Women

"Just as veins in the forehead shrink immediately if a large amount of sugar is taken for a migraine, I have seen veins (back of hand) disappear with progesterone treatment, just when a suicidal depression is lifting. This suggests that there may be a migraine condition in the blood vessels of the limbic system of the brain, but there are also very rapid shifts in brain chemistry."

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress inhibits the thyroid, and can lower progesterone (and/or testosterone) while raising estrogen. Recent work by Siiteri and his group shows a hormonal involvement in various autoimmune diseases. Females are much more susceptible to these sicknesses than are males."

- Nutrition For Women

"Katharina Dalton has found that premenstrual symptoms, which result from a relative estrogen surplus and a progesterone deficiency, often continue during the menopause"

- Nutrition For Women

"Strickler found that only 10% of his patients with menopausal symptoms such as flushing, could feel and benefit from estrogen when it was alternated with a placebo. These studies, and a few dozen others, have convinced me that the symptoms of menopause result mainly from a progesterone deficiency, relative to the estrogens. The 10% who really feel better from estrogen possibly have an estrogen deficiency, but this has not been determined, and several other things could account for the lift they feel for example, a healthy thyroid gland will respond to elevated estrogen with an increased output of thyroxin, which at least would make the person feel different, and might raise blood sugar, increase alertness, etc."

- Nutrition For Women

"Digitalis and progesterone have very similar effects on the heart (Szent-Gyorgyi, Muscle Contraction). Digitalis is able to raise blood pressure and increase urine production, apparently by increasing the tone of the arterioles (Abram, 1910). If progesterones effect on muscle includes such an effect on arterioles, then the puzzle of menopausal — and premenopausal — flushing is no puzzle, but is merely one symptom of a progesterone deficiency relative to estrogen."

- Nutrition For Women

"Besides the nutrients needed to regulate the estrogen level (protein and B vitamins) and nutrients needed by the thyroid (e.g., iodine, manganese, and cobalt), special attention should be given to the anti-stress vitamins which are involved in progesterone synthesis (vitamin A, pantothenic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E) and to the nutrients that are known to be wasted by excess estrogen: folic acid, zinc, and vitamin B6, particularly."

- Nutrition For Women

"High cholesterol usually indicates low thyroid function. When thyroid is low, cholesterol isnt converted efficiently into progesterone. The real cause of heart attacks seems to be hypothyroidism and its effects, including loss of magnesium."

- Nutrition For Women

"Testosterone and progesterone both have direct anti-estrogen activity."

- Nutrition For Women

"Progesterone has been found to reverse the chemical changes which occur in collagen with aging."

- Nutrition For Women

"Some of the changes of aging probably relate to autoimmune reactions, in which the body attacks itself; both testosterone and progesterone normalize the immune system, suppressing auto-immune problems."

- Nutrition For Women

"There are several dietary practices which will promote the formation of progesterone, but the most effective is to use liver once a week, to use eggs daily, and to avoid foods which inhibit the thyroid, such as raw cabbage and broccoli. Butter contains some progesterone."

- Nutrition For Women

"One theory of vitamin E action is that it protects progesterone. A recent discovery is that a prostaglandin (a hormone made from fatty acids) regulates blood pressure via the kidney — vitamin E protects fatty acids."

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress diseases typically have a dominant allergic aspect, and respond to steroids. Cortisone is used medically, but has side effects which could be avoided by using progesterone (though medical progesterone usually contains allergenic solvents and preservatives such as phenol). Niacin, vitamin A, vitamin C, etc., help to produce progesterone, and so often help in stress diseases, though the manufactured substances are themselves somewhat allergenic."

- Nutrition For Women

"Polyunsaturated oils inhibit the immune system and so probably suppress symptoms. The steroids (e.g., progesterone) and thyroid hormones normalize the immune system when they are present in normal amounts."

- Nutrition For Women

"The relevant effects of thyroid (especially with progesterone, to promote tissue response to thyroid, and to block cortisone production) however, are stimulation of protein synthesis and the prevention of lactate formation - or the stimula tion of its oxidation, either by the tumor itself or by other tissues, to prevent its entry into the Cori cycle, for gluconeogenesis."

- Nutrition For Women

"Many women with abnormal Pap smears, even with a biopsy showing the so-called carcinoma in situ, have returned to normal in just two months with a diet including the following: 90 grams of protein, 500 mg. of magnesium as the chloride, 100,000 units of vitamin A, 400 units of vitamin E, 5 mg. of folic acid, 100 mg. of pantothenic acid, 100 mg. of B6, 100 mg. of niacinamide, and 500 mg. of vitamin C, with thyroid and progesterone as needed. Liver should be eaten twice a week. Some of the women apply vitamin A directly to the cervix."

- Nutrition For Women

"All of the effects of prolactin excess (including amenorrhea) which respond to an increase of the DOPA/ serotonin ratio can be obtained to some extent by other, more easily available, materials. Vitamin B6 , thyroid, and progesterone all have this action"

- Nutrition For Women

"Since tryptophan promotes formation of serotonin which stimulates release of prolactin, and prolactin activates the formation of sebum (oil) by the skin, large amounts of milk could promote a tendency toward acne, when there is a deficiency of B6, thyroid, progesterone, etc."

- Nutrition For Women

"Estrogen is regulated centrally or crucially — by the liver. Estrogen, progesterone, iodine, sugar and stress are closely linked with each other,"

- Nutrition For Women

"Progesterone is the only steroid hormone I know of which will cause the thymus to regenerate."

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress uses progesterone and can cause menstrual periods to stop."

- Nutrition For Women

"Starting suddenly around the time of menopause, cortisol is higher, probably as compensation for the lost stabilizing effects of progesterone, and the increased inflammatory processes resulting from lower body temperature."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Aromatase, the enzyme that produces estrogen, is present in muscles, fat, blood vessels, and many other tissues, and its activity is increased by cortisol, and decreased by progesterone. The changed activity of these two steroids at menopause can account for the sudden increase in the degenerative diseases, inflammation, depression, etc."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Respiratory and circulatory problems increase with menopause, corresponding to increases in inflammatory cytokines and cortisol, and decreases in progesterone and thyroid hormone. Both thyroid and progesterone are thermogenic, and lower estrogen levels."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The standard treatment for atrial fibrillation is destruction of part of the conduction system of the heart, called ablation, which costs more than $25,000 in the U.S., and results in a very high percentage of heart failure. Correction of the problematic prolonged QT interval with thermogenic agents such as progesterone, thyroid, and aspirin (Korkmaz-Icéz, et al., 2016) isn’t of interest to the profession."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Nutritional thermogenic factors include sodium, calcium, vitamin D, carbohydrates, especially sugar, and protein, which interact with our endogenous energy regulating factors, especially thyroid and progesterone."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Many of the changes caused by daily stresses are reversed during deep slow wave sleep. The amount of slow wave sleep is decreased with aging. A few animal studies have found that artificially extended sleep reversed some of the major problems of old age. Progesterone is able to increase the amount of slow wave sleep, probably because of its effect on body temperatur"

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It has been known for several decades that the production of progesterone and DHEA decreases steadily with aging, and in recent years it has been noticed that when aged skin is exposed to sunlight it produces only half as much vitamin D as young skin does. Old skin has about half as much cholesterol as young skin, so it isn’t surprising that those substances derived from it are reduced."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol’s functions are similar in many ways to those of progesterone. In the pregnant uterus, for example, progesterone’s relaxing function is backed up by cholesterol (Smith, et al., 2005). In the brain, excitation of nerves by glutamic acid is controlled by the uptake protein which binds this transmitter, and this protein’s function depends on cholesterol; reduction of cholesterol prolongs nerve excitation"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides eliminating polyunsaturated fats (n-3 and n-6) from the diet to reduce the formation of cholesterol esters and to reduce the decline of cholesterol synthesis with aging, supplementing with progesterone is a way to reduce the formation of esters (Synouri-Vrettakou and Mitropoulos, 1983; Miller and Melnykovych, 1984; Jeng and Klem, 1984; Mulas, et al., 2011; Anchisi, et al., 2012). Lidocaine is another inhibitor of cholesterol ester formation (Bell, 1981; Bell, et al., 1982) that is probably useful in some degenerative conditions."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Experiments over the last 60 years have shown that more or less glucose, carbon dioxide, warmth, and progesterone during embryonic and fetal development can affect the growth of the brain, and the brain’s way of guiding future development and adaptive ability."

- November 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Safe things that lower carbon monoxide or protect against its effects include methylene blue, caffeine, aspirin, progesterone, and red light."

- November 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In the 1970s, after I had learned to think of progesterone as the antagonist of estrogen,"

- November 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Injury to the ovaries, or systemic stress, tends to decrease the production of progesterone, while the body’s production of estrogen is increased."

- November 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Some of the factors that cause atrophy of the thymus gland include cortisol and other glucocorticoid hormones, estrogen, prostaglandins, polyunsaturated fatty acids, lipid peroxidation, nitric oxide, endotoxin, hypoglycemia, and ionizing radiation. Progesterone and thyroid hormone support restoration of the thymus gland, providing protection by opposing all of those agents of atrophy. An increase of sugar in the diet can correct some of the metabolic changes of aging"

- November 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Other orthomolecules besides niacin would be potassium, vitamin E (improving oxygen supply, facilitating cell retention of proteins), inositol (stabilizer of cells and proteins against denaturing or dehydrating influences, Webb, 1965) the other B vitamins, vitamin C, anabolic steroids (for example, the androgens, and progesterone, ginseng, eleutherococcus) to promote protein synthesis and retention of potassium and creatine and ATP."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"Exosome production during stress is part of the body’s normal restorative function (Zhang, et al., 2017); it’s only when protective factors such as progesterone and carbon dioxide are lacking that their production becomes counter-productive."

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone and its neuroactive metabolites including tetrahydroprogesterone or allopregnanolone, are very effective calcium channel blockers (Todorovic, et al., 2004; Pathirathna, et al., 2005; Hu, et al., 2007). A major function of progesterone is the inactivation of the estrogen receptor; estrogen and its receptor are powerful activators of cellular calcium uptake"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Studies of progesterone’s effects on recovery of nerve function after traumatic brain damage have found that vitamin D increases its effectiveness. By improving calcium homeostasis, opposing the effects of the parathyroid hormone which activates calcium channels, vitamin D (25-hydroxycholecalciferol) is coming to be considered a neurosteroid (Groves, et al., 2014; Gezen-Ak and Dursun, 2019), as well as an essential factor in immunity"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"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

"CRH activates aromatase, creating a potential vicious circle, but progesterone can prevent that effect (Roy, et al., 1999). CRH inhibits progesterone production, while increasing estrogen"

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"A.V. Everitt reviewed studies in rabbits showing that the endogenous estrogen of pregnancy increased the stiffness of their connective tissues, but that the continuing increased production of progesterone between litters reversed that effect. They found that the connective tissues of animals that had borne many litters seemed to be younger than the tissues of animals of the same age that had never been mated."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In healthy women, progesterone in the postpartum period is much higher than before pregnancy—seven times higher in the plasma, three times higher in the cerebrospinal fluid (Datta, et al., 1986). This corresponds to the time of brain restoration."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Many studies over the last 60 years have shown the positive effects of progesterone on brain development—increasing the size of the brain, the thickness of the cortex, the resistance to injury, and the quality of functioning."

- 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

"With insufficient cholesterol, the normally high postpartum concentration of progesterone isn’t likely to be maintained, and instead of brain restoration, the various pro-inflammatory effects of serotonin and estrogen will predominate, with effects such as depression, joint pain, anxiety, and brain edema."

- 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

"Things in the environment, or substances produced in reactions to environmental stress, that might cause autism, include prenatal and neonatal exposure to radiation, including isotopes from the power industry, bomb testing, Chernobyl, and Fukushima; exposure to air pollution, including nitrogen oxides, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particles (Jung, et al., 2013); aluminum (Mold, et al., 2018), lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, manganese, and nickel (Windham, et al, 2006); acetaminophen, infections, endotoxin, exogenous and endogenous estrogens, hypothyroidism, progesterone deficiency, agmatine deficiency, serotonin excess, endogenous nitric oxide (Sweeten, et al., 2004), and vitamin D deficiency."

- May 2018 - Ray Peats Newsletter

"Antiexcitotoxic substances include progesterone, memantine, minocycline, and agmatine. A high ratio of CO2 to lactate, reducing intracellular pH, is important for preventing excessive excitability. Thyroid hormone, besides directly increasing energy and the CO2/lactate ratio, tends to increase the brain’s temperature, and to increase the ratio of progesterone to estrogen."

- May 2018 - Ray Peats Newsletter

"The oxidative processes that support purposive, creative functioning of the organism, optimize CO2 by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase; this enzyme is inhibited by thyroid hormone T3, progesterone, urea, caffeine, antipsychotic drugs, and aspirin. Agents that tend to cause reversion to the primitive anaerobic energy production activate the enzyme—serotonin, tryptophan, cysteine, histamine, estrogen, aldosterone, HIF, SSRIs, angiotensin, and parathyroid hormone, for example."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Like intracellular ATP, an appropriate amount of progesterone, T3, urea and carbon dioxide each has an infinity of beneficial effects, individually and in combination, and with their synergizing nutritional, botanical and pharmaceutical substances their use could transform the nature of health care."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Combinations of substances such as CO2, progesterone, angiotensin receptor blockers, acetazolamide and aspirin that affect fundamental properties of the organism are appropriate for use in a great range of problems now treated with drugs considered to be specific for particular ailments. The purpose should be to support the patient’s recovery, not to eliminate a disease."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Using aspirin at bedtime, to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis, is likely to be helpful in age related insomnia. Progesterone and vitamin E act in various ways to prevent excessive stimulation by prostaglandins."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"With aging, iron and the polyunsaturated fats accumulate in the brain. Estrogen slows the removal of dopamine, increasing its opportunity to react toxically with iron and highly unsaturated fats, especially arachidonic acid and DHA; it also tends to increase the formation of prostaglandins and nitric oxide. Progesterone’s opposite effects probably account for the lower prevalence of Parkinson’s disease in women than in men."

- March 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"things that are likely to be protective in Parkinson’s disease are broadly protective against estrogen and the inflammatorydegenerative processes: Progesterone, minocycline and other anti-inflammatory antibiotics, agmatine, aspirin, coffee, niacinamide, citrus flavonoids, vitamin D, ACE inhibitors, fibrous-antiseptic foods."

- March 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Animal studies since the 1950s have clearly showed progesterones protective, stabilizing, restorative effects on the brain, and the direct effects of progesterone on brain cells have been demonstrated in vitro."

- March 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"All of the organs affected by brain injury--kidneys, lungs, intestine, heart, liver, blood vessels, thymus, bones and bone marrow, endocrine glands--are protected by progesterone."

- March 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Giving progesterone orally would seem to be appropriate for any serious stress, since the intestine quickly becomes an amplifier of the inflammatory reactions."

- March 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone (and its metabolites, including allopregnanolone) protect against the harmful changes caused by a brain injury,"

- March 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"If something (such as smoking, or very high oxygen concentration, or a hormonal imbalance) inhibits the activity of MAO, the high local activity of serotonin can cause lung edema, decreased blood oxygenation, lung fibrosis and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Estrogen is an important inhibitor of MAO in the vascular endothelium; progesterone has the opposite effect, increasing the activity of MAO ("

- July 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"spirin, vitamin E, and progesterone can be partly understood as antiestrogenic substances,"

- July 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Aspirin, vitamin E, and progesterone protect against a broad spectrum of harmful factors, besides their various antagonistic effects on the estrogen system itself. One of progesterone’s major effects is to suppress or degrade the estrogen receptor."

- July 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Among the common inhibitors of carbonic anhydrase are the mildly oxidizing flavonoids such as apigenin and fisetin, some polyphenols, vitamin B1, vitamin D (Mras, et al., 2012), progesterone (partly by blocking the activation by estrogen and aldosterone), and emodin."

- July 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"estrogen is excitatory, analogous to excessively increasing temperature, and that it shifts energy production toward glycolysis, and shifts cell functions toward dedifferentiation and cancer metabolism, while progesterone has opposing effects: It reduces excitation, decreasing the need for energy, while shifting energy production away from inefficient glycolysis; it can restore normal differentiation while reversing features of cancer,"

- January 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"t bedtime, a mild warm bath can compensate for low internal heat production, increasing the metabolic rate and helping to increase glycogen stores and increase progesterone level, making deep restorative sleep possible. But if the bath is too warm or too prolonged, or if estrogen’s influence is too great, the increased metabolic rate can intensify the inefficient metabolism further depleting energy stores, and leading to higher stress hormones. Having extra carbohydrate before and during the warm bath improves its therapeutic function, and decreases the risk of heat shock."

- January 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Keeping energy efficiency high, while reducing wasteful excitations, has a long history in health optimization. Avoiding excessive polyunsaturated fats and phosphate in the diet, and regularly getting the essential nutrients needed to maintain thyroid and progesterone production, is simple. Choosing foods that contain substances that protect against the many known pro-inflammatory, age-accelerating processes is relatively simple—citrus fruits, for example, contain a great variety of substances related to nobiletin, naringin, fisetin, and quercetin,"

- January 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"progesterone is an essential factor for nerve growth, and since the 1990s the brain has been known to synthesize it, and to maintain a local concentration of progesterone which is higher than the concentration in the blood stream."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It seems likely that a basic part of progesterone’s ability to protect the brain against stress is its support for the high energy mitochondrial oxidation of glucose to carbon dioxide."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"he experience of time governs the way we behave, and our metabolism governs the way we experience time. Progesterone, as a central neurosteroid, is a crucial part of our metabolism that shapes our consciousness as it projects itself into time"

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"during constructive exploration, energy is abundant, and cells with the highest energy needs are protected by progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and other steroids."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides directly stabilizing the internal structures of the cell, progesterone increases the ATP concentration and oxygen consumption, decreases excitatory systems and numerous inflammation-related processes, decreases intracellular calcium concentration, and increases the use of glucose, leading to increased carbon dioxide production, as well as adjusting breathing and pH."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the presence of progesterone activated the ovary’s synthetic apparatus in a self stimulating process. (The negative feedback idea from cybernetics has been widely misapplied in endocrinology.)"

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reticular activating system of the brain stem, which is responsible for waking alertness and muscle relaxation, is central to the orienting reflex, and is responsive to progesterone"

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It has been suggested (Sanford, et al., 1993) that the presence of these waves in REM sleep indicates that the brain is in a state of more-or-less continual orienting. When progesterone is given during sleep, it increases the amount of REM."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The pro-cognitive effects of an enriched environment and of progesterone can to some extent substitute for each other, and they are additive;"

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"oth estrogen and the stress-induced glucocorticoids are reduced by environmental enrichment, allowing progesterone to function with less interference"

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Other substances that protect against the effects of hypoglycemia or impaired glucose oxidation include progesterone, caffeine, certain anesthetics including xenon, niacinamide, agmatine, carbon dioxide,"

- January 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Some of the most important anti-nitric oxide defenses are progesterone, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin A, niacinamide, coffee, aspirin, and foods containing flavonoids, terpenoids, polyphenols, and sterols. Grass-fed milk contains a variety of polyphenols. Citrus fruits, many tropical fruits (e.g., guavas, longans, and lychees), and cooked mushrooms are good sources of apigenin, naringenin and related chemicals."

- January 2016 - 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

"Progesterone also allows the thyroid gland to secrete its hormones, especially when the thyroid function has been inhibited by estrogen"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Progesterone and DHEA are the precursors for the other more specialized steroid hormones, including cortisol, aldosterone (sodium-retaining hormone), estrogen, and testosterone."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"During pregnancy, very large amounts of progesterone are made. It protects and stabilizes practically all functions of both the mother and the fetus."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Part of progesterones protective effect is a result of its quieting effect on cells. For example, it tends to prevent seizure activity in brain cells. During childbirth, its normal function is to act as an anesthetic."

- 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

"By the 1930s, it was well established that the resistance of the organism depended on the energy produced by respiration under the influence of the thyroid gland, as well as on the adrenal hormones, and that the hormones of pregnancy (especially progesterone) could substitute for the adrenal hormones"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"The stress which can cause a cortisone deficiency is even more likely to disturb formation of progesterone and thyroid hormone, so the fact that cortisone can relieve symptoms does not mean that it has corrected the problem."

- 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

"A gynecologist I knew had been giving his wife progesterone since she was about 40, and at 60 she was youthful looking, and still menstruating."

- 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

"Marion Diamond, who studied the effects of stimulation on rats brain development, found that pregnancy or progesterone treatment--like freedom and stimulation--caused the brain to grow, and estrogen--like stress--caused it to shrink."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"If a certain substance, such as progesterone, closely reflects the quality of environmental support and is intimately involved in realizing and sustaining our most characteristically human evolutionary features, I dont think we should deny its importance just because of its greater importance in women than in men."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"I had some probable melanomas years ago, and I found that progesterone and DHEA and increased thyroid caused them to disappear quickly."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Progesterone has a wide spectrum of anticancer activity, but as far as I know only synthetic progestins have been used medically. Although I used myself it on things that appeared to be very active melanomas, I usually recommend a slightly hyperthyroid state for helping to control it."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"The actual level of estrogen rises all through the reproductive years, and at menopause, the reduction in antiestrogenic factors, such as progesterone, thyroid, and DHEA, leads to increased effects of estrogen."

- 2001 - February

"ntiendorphin, antiexcitotoxic, anticholinergic, antiserotonergic, antiprostaglandin, and antiglucocorticoid drugs have been used with good effect in various degenerative nervous diseases, but all the so-called anti drugs are imprecise antagonists, and have many side effects. The natural antagonists and nutrients are usually helpful. Protein, sodium, magnesium, carbon dioxide/bicarbonate, progesterone, thyroid, vitamins, etc., can be curative in many brain diseases,"

- 2001 - February

"By reducing the cell’s ability to bind estrogen, progesterone acts an estrogen repellant."

- 2000 - March

"There are many antiestrogenic systems ( thyroid, progesterone, testosterone, sulfation, methylation, glucuronidation, antiinflammatory factors, etc.) and the varied, specific nature of the organism’s response to stimulation is probably sufficient to account for the different’ outcomes, such as masculinity or feminity, tumefaction or growth, alertness or mania."

- 2000 - March

"Progesterone’s functions include antitoxic or catatoxic effects, antiswelling and antiinflammatory effects, antiglucocorticoid and antiprostaglandin effects. When it alleviates a problem, that doesn’t mean that the problem was caused by a progesterone deficiency."

- 2000 - March

"In outline, a benign stimulation is one which can be met with adequate energy, with good humor, and with an adequate amount of progesterone and related chemical resources."

- 2000 - March

"All of the information that has accumulated about estrogen in the last century leads to the view that it is the organism’s means of producing a momentary and localized imbalance, goading cells into activity. An important factor in the integration of this momentary imbalance into the life of the organism is the manner in which destabilizing excitation and the restoration of stability, e.g., estrogen and progesterone production, relate to each other. Estrogen stimulates the formation of progesterone, and progesterone lowers the concentration of estrogen."

- 2000 - March

"If estrogen can cause edema in any tissue, then antiestrogens, such as progesterone, can probably protect against stress in any tissue."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since I had become a sound sleeper as soon as I began taking thyroid, and had seen that thyroid alone would cure most people’s insomnia (sometimes, as one doctor described his experience, better than morphine) I began to understand that the adrenalin which disturbed sleep was an indicator of defective energy production, and that the things which restored sleep—thyroid, salt, sugar, protein, and progesterone, for example—were acting directly on the cells’ energy production."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Thyroid, protein, sodium, and magnesium will correct most edemas. Progesterone, acting on mitochondria to increase respiratory efficiency, and on structural proteins to change their ionic affinities, synergizes with the other natural factors to correct permeability and water regulation."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides its ability to increase blood perfusion of the kidneys (and other organs), progesterone has an important role in mineral regulation, since it acts as a weak aldosterone, protecting against both a deficiency and an excess of that adrenal hormone."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"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

"In the fetus and the newborn baby, sodium promotes growth. . Progesterone, sodium and glucose are often limiting factors in the growth of the babys brain; when they are deficient, cells die instead of growing."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Estrogen is produced in fat (Stiterti and MacDonald, 1973, Vermeulen, 1976) which tends to increase with age, when thyroid and progesterone are deficient."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

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

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"LH (luteinizing hormone) increases when progesterone or testosterone is deficient, and growth hormone and prolactin (which are closely associated in evolution) both increase under a variety of stressful situations, and with estrogenic stimulation."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone and pregnenolone also decline in aging men."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Men who have had a diagnosis of scleroderma have told me that with the use of thyroid and magnesium supplements, epsom salts baths, and topical progesterone and vitamin E, their symptoms regressed. I suspect that carbon dioxide produced in mitochondria is the main factor in removing calcium from them."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone, thyroid, bromocriptine, and other things are available to normalize the pituitary, when that ts malfunctioning."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"digitalis and ouabain are plant steroid-derivatives that are poisonous to animal cells--especially the heart cells--by acting at a site which is normally regulated by substances such as DHEA and progesterone."

- 1995 - September Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Even people who like to say that the ovaries don’t fail at menopause describe a theory in which menopause and its consequences are the result of the disappearance of eggs from the ovary. That theory is so simple it can be described in three short sentences, none of which is true: (1) ovary runs out of eggs; (2) ovulation produces hormones, so you can tell when ovulation stops because the ovaries stop producing hormones; (3) menstruation stops because ovulation has stopped. Those principles are surrounded by various corollaries. Estrogen is the female hormone. Estrogen deficiency accelerates aging. Treatment with estrogen makes you more feminine. Progesterone deficiency is the result of anovulatary cycles."

- 1995 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It is now established that aging animals, at the time they become infertile, are deficient in progesterone, but still produce estrogen. Even in young individuals, when stress occurs around the time of ovulation, interference with progesterone production will prevent implantation. If progesterone becomes deficient after the embryo has become implanted, miscarriage occurs."

- 1995 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"gonadotropins participate in the development, maintenance, and functioning of the ovaries, and their effects depend on their timing, their balance with each other and with the steroids produced by the ovaries in response to their stimulation, and their actions are modified by many other factors, ovarian, nervous, pituitary, uterine, and immunological. During youth, the system functions in a coordinated way, with ovulation as a consequence. During aging, the crucial changes appear to be a decreased ability of the ovary and the brain to produce progesterone."

- 1995 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone is an anti-androgen, and blocks testosterone’s effects. When testosterone is given to newborn or very young rats, it sets up a male pattern of hormone development, but if progesterone is given at the same time, that doesnt happen. Progesterone prevents the differentiation away from the basic female path into the male specialization."

- 1995 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Later in life, a deficiency of progesterone in a woman can again lead to masculinization of some features, such as musculature and facial or body hair."

- 1995 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"At menopause, estrogen excess can promote the production of androgens, in the absence of progesterone, which tends ta defeminize the woman. This is often a result of stress, and sometimes is a consequence of hypothyroidism. In situations of this sort, estrogen is seen not to be a feminizing hormone; it is unable to neutralize the male hormones the body produces in response to the estrogen excess."

- 1995 - August.September - 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

"Albert Szent-Gyorgyi showed that the heart responds to progesterone, and more recently other researchers have presented evidence that DHEA is our endogenous digitalis."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In stress, even the respiratory center of the brain becomes under-active, tolerating the state of hypoxia. Since progesterone activates the respiratory center, the depressed respiration of stress is consistent with a deficiency of progesterone."

- 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

"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

"Vitamin A regulates Iysosomes, and so a deficiency might promote the accumulation of intracellular debris. It is an antioxidant, and so a deficiency might tend to induce the stress-hypoxia proteins, and it is used massively in the synthesis of steroids (for example, progesterone supplementation spares vitamin A). But possibly most important is the de-differentiation that occurs in many cells in a vitamin A deficiency. In the skin and mucous membranes, a vitamin A deficiency acts like an excess of estrogen, to promote the formation of keratin."

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

"Progesterone has the special status of being an essential nerve growth factor, and generally blocks the catabolic actions of the glucocorticoids and estrogen, thereby protecting all tissues, from brain cells to white blood cells."

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

"Both progesterone and triiodothyronine have the function of increasing the tissue’s energy supply, and in suitable doses can have a steadying ,calming effect."

- 1991 - June- 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

"The main inhibitory transmitter substance in the brain is GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), which is closely related to aspartic and succinic acids. GABA has many anti-stress effects, besides the direct brain quieting action. For example, it causes a sequestration of insulin, keeping some sugar from being turned into fat, and it promotes progesterone formation, which protects many systems from damaging hyperactivity."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Excessive cholinergic action in itself can cause brain damage. The anticholinergic drugs, amantadine (Symmetrel) and atropine (related to the substances in Jimson weed) have been used to treat Parkinson’s diseases. Atropine used to be listed as antidote for many poisons, probably because of its stabilizing effect on the nerves. It also promotes the formation of the protective hormone progesterone."

- 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

"Professor Soderwall and his students at the University of Oregon had shown that the corpora lutea (areas in the ovary which mainly produce progesterone) appeared to fail in aging hamsters, and that vitamin E supplements could extend fertility by asignificant amount."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"I found that the uterine endometrium of old animals often consumed oxygen at a high rate, and showed other signs of being under the influence of excessive estrogen. As I tried to understand this, I saw that several things could contribute to a high rate of oxygen consumption. Either too much estrogen, or too little progesterone could have the same effect, since it is the ratio between these hormones which controls their effects. A vitamin E deficiency increases oxygen consumption, and too much unsaturated fat has the same effect."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"(Progesterone is unusual among the anti-stress steroids in having no harmful side-effects."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Many degenerative diseases develop under the influence of excessive estrogen and cortisone (and as a result of the many metabolie changes which follow exposure to those hormones). Many of these diseases, especially those which appear after puberty and are more frequent in women, can be treated very effectively with the anti-estrogen and anti-stress hormones, such as progesterone."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Hans Selye pointed out that estrogen treatment mimics the first, shock phase of the stress reaction. An excess of estrogen (or any stressor) causes the pituitary to secrete prolactin and ACTH, and both of these hormones act on the ovaries to stop progesterone production,"

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The body’s highest concentration of cholesterol exists in the brain. The level of cholesterol in the blood strongly influences the production of the protective hormones, such as progesterone."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Light also increases the activity of normal respiratory enzymes, and tends to normalize (or maximize) the production of hormones, including progesterone and thyroid."

- 1990 - October - 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

"Vitamin A, thyroid, progesterone, and the related steroid, dehydroepiandrosterone, all oppose estrogen, which has several immunosuppressive effects, including a cortisol-like thymic atrophy, hypoactivity of T cells, and reduced production of gamma-interferon and interleukin-2, reduced natural killer cell activity, and it probably has a role in the development of some auto-immune diseases."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"For atleast 80 years, people have been observing an association between anesthesia and the elimination of viral infections. We have at least three natural anesthetic systems, namely, the GABA. system, the endorphins, and the steroids (especially progesterone). These very likely are just three aspects of a single system. Close analogs of the GABA. system are already known to have anti viral action."

- 1988 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Camphor, progesterone, nutritional supplements, and artificial fever have even fewer side-effects than penicillin and should be tested more widely. Th GABA analogs, besides being non-toxic, have the additional advantage of being very cheap. In the pharmaceutical bureaucratic world, though, this has too often been a fatal defect."

- 1988 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"to a very great extent, progesterone could substitute for vitamin A, meaning that a very large fraction of the vitamin A used by the body is used up in making progesterone, from which the other steroid hormones are made."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"optimal treatment of leukoplakia would involve a program to lower the chronic background level  of estrogen, while promoting progesterone synthesis. It happens that the body spontaneously moves in that direction, if given the right support. With adequate protein (eggs, milk, cheese, shellfish, liver, etc.), the liver removes estrogen from the blood entirely on its first passage through the liver, in an otherwise healthy organism."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While the thyroid hormone promotes the elimination of estrogen, it happens to be essential for the production of progesterone. Vitamin A (with cholesterol) is consumed at a high rate by the corpus luteum, when there is adequate thyroid hormone."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Plenty of bright light helps to maintain progesterone synthesis."

- 1988 - 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

"The anesthetic steroids, especially progesterone, normally reduce the need for secretion of cortisol, but also act as a protective buffer against the damaging effects of cortisol."

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