Pregnenolone, anonymous and unheralded as it may be, is the Mother of all steroid hormones. It is derived from cholesterol. From there it’s converted into testosterone, progesterone, estrogen and cortisol, among other important biochemicals. Even vitamin D, the body’s homemade essential nutrient, is a derivative of the under-appreciated biochemical.

Pregnenolone itself, in its raw unconverted form, can be considered the quintessential biochemical of youth. Kids and teenagers make loads of it. While pregnenolone on its own may not have many hormone properties, it is able to improve the activity of and stabilize the effects of other hormones, including cortisol, testosterone and estrogen. As we get older, our pregnenolone levels tend to decrease. This is one of the reasons for the ever increasing degenerative impact of stress associated with aging.

Hormones. We hear the word all the time. “Hormonal acne”, “woman’s hormones”, “stress hormones “, almost every measurement of health is impacted by these ubiquitous biochemicals. And when it comes to health, no aspect of our biochemistry is more relevant than the efficient and effective function of hormones.

While there are various classes of hormones, including “exocrine hormones” that work through the skin and the digestive tract (those produced in the pancreatic sweat and salivary glands for example) and “paracrine hormones” (prostaglandins and interleukins are classic examples), whose activities are restricted to the microscopic regions around a cell, the most commonly recognized hormones are part of what is known as the “endocrine system”. These hormones, with names like cortisol, testosterone and insulin, travel throughout the body via the blood, where they exert their effects by seeking, contacting and activating the cells of various structures and organs throughout the body.