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Clinical Chemistry 46: 414-415, 2000;
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2000;46:414-415.)
© 2000 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Technical Briefs

Pascal Kintz1,a, Vincent Cirimele1, Marc Deveaux2 and Bertrand Ludes1

1 Institut de Médecine Légale, 11 Rue Humann, F-67000 Strasbourg, France;
2 Institut de Médecine Légale, Place Varlet, F-59000 Lille, France;
a author for correspondence: fax 33-3-88-24-0085, e-mail pascal.kintz@wanadoo.fr

Endogenous anabolic steroids and their precursors in the form of dietary supplements have become widely available as over-the-counter tablets in the United States or through the Internet in other countries.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is an endogenous steroid produced by the ovaries and adrenal glands. As a precursor to testosterone and estrogen, DHEA can be converted peripherally to androstenedione, testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone, and aromatized to estrogen. Recently, athletes have begun taking DHEA, theoretically hoping to derive some competitive benefit from its conversion to testosterone. However, in a few subjects (1)(2), no effect of DHEA on body weight, body mass, resting metabolic rate, total energy expenditure, or proteolysis was demonstrated. Late in 1996, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission added DHEA to the list of prohibited compounds.

In a study performed by Dehennin et al. (3), labeled DHEA was converted to testosterone, and therefore, some questions were received by our laboratory from sports federations concerning the potential increase of the urinary testosterone/epitestosterone ratio (T/E) through DHEA supplementation. According to Bosy et al. (4), the urinary T/E ratio is only slightly affected for a short period of time (2–5 h), without exceeding 6:1, the current acceptable ratio for the IOC. In their study, seven male volunteers ingested a daily DHEA dose of 50 mg each morning for 30 days. Urine specimens were collected before ingestion and 2–3 h . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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