in vivo and in vitro evidences of dehydroepiandrosterone protective role on the cardiovascular system

Context: dehydroepiandrosterone (dhea) and its sulfate ester, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (dhea-s) have been considered as putative anti-aging hormones for many years. indeed, while dheas is the most abundant circulating hormone, its concentration is markedly decreased upon aging and early epidemiologic trials have revealed a strong inverse correlation between the hormone concentrations and the occurrence of several dysfunctions frequently encountered in the elderly. naturally, hormonal supplementation has been rapidly suggested to prevent dhea (s) deficiency and therefore, age-related development of these pathologies, using the same strategy as estrogen replacement therapy proposed in postmenopausal women. evidence acquisition: all references were searched using pubmed and the following strategy: our initial selection included all articles in english and we sorted them with the following keywords: “dhea or dhea-s” and “heart or vascular or endothelium or cardiovascular disease”. the search was limited to neither the publication date nor specific journals. the final selection was made according to the relevance of the article content with the aims of the review. according to these criteria, fewer than 10% of the articles retrieved at the first step were discarded. results: in this short review, we have focused on the cardiovascular action of dhea. we started by analyzing evidences in favor of a strong inverse association between dhea (s) levels and the cardiovascular risk as demonstrated in multiple observational epidemiologic studies for several decades. then we discussed the different trials aimed at supplementing dhea (s), both in animals and human, for preventing cardiovascular diseases and we analyzed the possible reasons for the discrepancy observed among the results of some studies. finally, we presented putative molecular mechanisms of action for dhea (s), demonstrated in vitro in different models of vascular and cardiac cells, highlighting the complexity of the involved signaling pathways. conclusions: the identification of the beneficial cardiovascular effects of dhea (s) and a better understanding of the involved mechanisms should be helpful to develop new strategies or pharmacologic approaches for many lethal diseases in western countries.