Investigating the Debate: Does DHEA Alter Food Intake?

Treatment with dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) leads to a decrease in the fat stores of a variety of rodent models of obesity. However, whether DHEA affects food intake and whether such changes are important at reducing obesity is not settled. Some state that food intake is not altered by DHEA and that the effect on weight gain is caused by induced inefficiencies in metabolism. Others report that DHEA leads to a prompt decrease in caloric consumption and that this change is important in causing weight loss. In this commentary the data supporting both sides of this controversy are reviewed. Analysis suggests that these radically different conclusions are caused by investigators using studies of different experimental design; shorter experiments emphasize DHEA's effects on food intake, while longer experiments tend to emphasize DHEA's metabolic effects. In addition the way the investigators normalize their food intake results for differences in animal size may influence their analyses. It is concluded that DHEA exerts both a metabolic effect and an effect on caloric intake and that both are involved in medicating changes in fat stores of obese animals.