I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist and Long COVID survivor now beset at 80yo with prostate cancer and the medieval treatment regime most popular. I have written extensively analyzing the mental problems of Our Mad King Donald the 1st and Co. on my substack.com "Greeley's Newsletter". I treated 25K+ patients and wrote 1 M Rx. One in 8 American men will undergo treatment for prostate cancer in our lifetimes. What we are not told is that the Lupron hormone blocker we're injected with brings on an almost immediate dementia, short-term memory loss. My father died at 78 after suffering for 2yrs. from a botched operation on his abdominal aorta. He despised his only child, a son, me, and never hugged me, said a kind word to me, or told me he loved me. Only recently, after much thought and research, have I realized that he was just repeating how he had been treated by his own father, after the death of my grandmother from the Spanish flu. Only now, with this information, have I been able to forgive him. Ugo, your appear to have been blessed with a loving father and I'm sorry you had to see him devolve with dementia. I treated many hundreds of Alzheimer's dementia patients, many poor, and sent them to the local health food store to purchase and consume three things: Vit B 12/folate, DHEA, and the seaweed Kelp. This simple regime restored their memory in nearly every case. Have a blessed day and thanks for your moving family remembrance.
You are correct, in my opinion: I have 16 years' experience with prescribing DHEA to “all comers” and I can vouch for its efficacy in boosting health, mental health included, via
- Contributing Testosterone and Estrogen, with beneficial effects on mood & confidence
- Reducing cortisol, thus allowing T4-to-T3 conversion and raising FT3
- Providing base material for Neurosteroid synthesis.
So your Rx, DHEA for dementia, is “on the ball” and maybe you should take your own Rx, but the obvious problem is that Lupron's action is exactly the opposite, of DHEA's.
Lupron blocks LH and FSH release
Lupron suppresses LH & FSH output by the Pituitary, leading to:
In my opinion (I admit that I could be wrong), DHEA will not make your Ca Prostate worse and might improve your prognosis..........
What Lupron actually does
Here is what AI has to say:
Lupron is a GnRH agonist that first stimulates, then down‑regulates pituitary GnRH receptors.
This suppresses LH and FSH output, which reduces testosterone production in the testes.
Less testosterone reduces DHT levels, without blocking 5‑alpha‑reductase.
Lupron does not block 5-alpha reductase (the Progesterone → Allo converting enzyme}.
LUPRON, plus (or, “versus”) DHEA
As to taking both Lupron and DHEA: the word is “imponderable”: They are antagonists.
However here are a couple of thoughts:
- Lupron, by blocking LH & FSH production, prevents neurosteroid synthesis: Rx DHEA should be good.
- DHEA will not boost Testosterone: in the male: it boosts Estrogen.
- DHEA lowers Cortisol output, thus promoting Deiodinase 1, to increase T3 production
- T3 supports alertness and cognition and upgrades all metabolic processes, including Brown Fat activity, so Glucose and Cholesterol metabolism, body temperature adn weight normalise.
- Lupron reduces Allo by blocking formation of Progesterone, not by blocking conversion to Allo.
- Progesterone + PEA boosts Allopregnanolone, by taking can be helpful in dementia:
NOTE:
- DHEA will not prevent Lupron's Testosterone ablation.
- DHEA does not raise Testosterone: it raises Estrogen, which suppresses Prostate Ca.
- Rx Progesterone will boost Allo, with no effect on Lupron's action.
- PEA (Palmitoyl Ethanol Amide) facilitates Progesterone-to- Allo conversion, thereby improving short-term memory and supporting cognition, mood and initiative.
- In my practice, DHEA reliably reduced serum PSA levels.
The calculation, as to what to do in your circumstances, is yours
To help with your calculation, please see two podcasts, three papers and Wikipedia's notes on Allopregnanolone:
You must derive your own conclusions, but please let me know what you think, "pro", or "con".
As said at the beginning of this note, my faith in the benefits of restoring DHEA (and hormone levels generally) to 20-year-old levels is based on my opinions regarding maintaining hormone balance, as a means of preserving health, supported by literature from Abraham Morrntaler and Fernand Labrie. The possibility that I am wrong exixts, so I offer this information solely in order to increase the breadth of your database and to provide you with "food for thought"; this is neither advice, nor recommendation.
Thanks for that very well researched and written post. Unfortunately, my PSA shot up 10X while taking DHEA, which was worth it for renewal of my mental functioning—my reason for living at 80! I meet with a new Urologist down here in Marietta, Ohio next month. PSA is 2.23 and brain is working, after Lupron throwing me into an Alzheimer’s type dementia. I’ll print off your note and very much appreciate it. BTW, I’m also a Long COVID survivor X5yrs. I very nearly died from the cardiomyocitis. The Pfizer vaxxs saved my life. Have a blessed evening!
Thank you for your touching lines about your father !
Several months ago, a few American observers, having a good knowledge of such diseases, pointed the fronto-temporal dementia, a receding of the brain and accordingly a loss of synapses, glie, neurons, beginnig near the forehead, and going on.
There are some clues so typical, that when a person who was talking to me about a nonagenerian, a common acquaintance, and how he sometimes rambles, I recognized at once the syndrome described by the authors of posts re this topic. A brilliant man, up to a few years ago, (un confereziere molto ricercato).
At the moment, I retain this hypothesis. You certainly heard about what filtered of the comments Mr. Fico made after his recent visit to DJT in Florida.
My father had vascular dementia near the end though probably brought on by inflammation following an earlier cerebral haemorrhage (and/or maybe medication). Anyway I sympathise. Regarding the ‘giant creature’ of civilization, reading again John Simpson’s ‘The wars against Saddam’ and the quotations from President George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld etc, what I see is an ego, or a small bunch of egos, running the show, and the ‘giant creature’ following blindly unable to assess the situation and respond rationally. I think history shows that civilization is (too) easily led. I wonder what AI (Grok?) would have answered in 2003 to the question: “Should I invade Iraq and if so should I depose Saddam or leave him notionally in charge?”.
UK judges and magistrates aren't allowed to practise beyond 75, formerly 70. Jurors must be under 70, which is about to rise to 75. The UK House of Lords will soon have a compulsory retirement age of about 80.
It seems a bit silly if presidents and prime ministers have no age limit. Yet some people, especially on healthy diets, stay sharp and alert until age 101. It seems unfair to deny them a role. Maybe there should have been more checks and balances, i.e. so as to reduce executive power somewhat?
Meanwhile the journalist Peter Oborne has written at least three books on the UK's descent into lying and scandal. It began in about 1980 and accelerated from 1997. Without those disastrous constitutional changes going through, this country would have continued to be admired for its level of integrity in public life. I don't know what's happened over this period in the Scandinavian countries; they used to be regarded as equally non-corrupt.
That's the beauty of democracy. Once you vote a candidate into power, there is no way to remove him until the next elections; where you'll have the chance to replace him with another one just as incompetent, wicked, and evil. At least, old, evil rulers may die of old age, and that seems to be the only way to get rid of the most obnoxious ones.
Re tennis balls, here is an extract from 'After virtue' by Alistair Macintyre (1981) apparently inspired by C S Lewis’ 'The abolition of Man.' Rather prescient for its time.
In our present culture differences of view have become incommensurable. There is no common yardstick against which diverse perspectives can be reckoned. For as long as these differences are considered unimportant there can be a naïve celebration of diversity as a good thing in and of itself. But once diversity reveals its inability to arbitrate serious disputes, the pendulum swings to the opposite pole. Hence it is easy to understand why protest becomes a distinctive moral feature of the present age and why indignation is the predominant modern emotion. The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protesters can never win an argument, and the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protesters can never lose an argument either. Hence protest is characteristically addressed to those who already share the protesters’ premises. Protesters rarely have anyone else to talk to but themselves. This is not to say that protest cannot be effective. It’s to say that it cannot be rationally effective, and that its dominant modes of expression give evidence of a certain perhaps unconscious awareness of this.
IM Doc, a commenter on Naked Capitalism, has said that he thinks Trump has white matter disease:
"This is usually manifested as “filter” deficiencies, sudden emotional outbursts, inability to decide, long diatribes and stories about things from decades ago, inability to recognize one’s own mistakes and deficiencies, some mild memory issues but maybe not, increased impulsive and risk-taking behavior, anger and wrath, inappropriate laughing and crying among many others. This disease process also greatly magnifies the underlying personality disorders." (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/trumps-greenland-threats-will-he-or-wont-he-act.html)
As to your larger point, I too feel that the culture at large is demented. When my parents began their descent into dementia a few years ago I found it shockingly familiar, an echo of society at large. People seem not just unwilling but unable to acknowledge the existence of ambivalent or contrary views. Past and future do not exist. Other people do not exist. Past actions are denied, second order effects unthinkable. All that matters is to address the sole thing that I am focused on, the feeling that *I* have *right now* (often overwhelming anxiety). Anything else is an attack. Among some of the elderly I see a physical posture of single minded determination, eyes fixed forward, marching hunched and stiff through any opposition toward a nonsensical goal.
I feel my own mental flexibility declining as I get older, but that doesn't explain the culture at large. I used to think H. P. Lovecraft's talk of a world descending into insanity was purple fantasy. Now it seems all too real. Were we always this mad?
What we don't want to admit to ourselves is everyone starts a mental decline, or change in their 60s (if not late 50s). I don't look at pretty girls because it stirs emotions; I look at them because it fascinates me I once had such emotions. There's nothing I dream about buying. What I do own becomes foreign, strange. Every time I pick up a book I enjoy it but also feel, why bother? I'll forget it soon.
Action adventure movies, always a nice stimulant if I'm bored, no longer.
Either my brain is purposely forgetting things I have to do, or...
If all that is true and you recognize people are getting older (as reported) and there are more of us (with declining birth rates) then yes, your conjecture is true. We don't need a societal ghost in the machine. It's accomplished by all us tired and poorly functioning parts.
I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist and Long COVID survivor now beset at 80yo with prostate cancer and the medieval treatment regime most popular. I have written extensively analyzing the mental problems of Our Mad King Donald the 1st and Co. on my substack.com "Greeley's Newsletter". I treated 25K+ patients and wrote 1 M Rx. One in 8 American men will undergo treatment for prostate cancer in our lifetimes. What we are not told is that the Lupron hormone blocker we're injected with brings on an almost immediate dementia, short-term memory loss. My father died at 78 after suffering for 2yrs. from a botched operation on his abdominal aorta. He despised his only child, a son, me, and never hugged me, said a kind word to me, or told me he loved me. Only recently, after much thought and research, have I realized that he was just repeating how he had been treated by his own father, after the death of my grandmother from the Spanish flu. Only now, with this information, have I been able to forgive him. Ugo, your appear to have been blessed with a loving father and I'm sorry you had to see him devolve with dementia. I treated many hundreds of Alzheimer's dementia patients, many poor, and sent them to the local health food store to purchase and consume three things: Vit B 12/folate, DHEA, and the seaweed Kelp. This simple regime restored their memory in nearly every case. Have a blessed day and thanks for your moving family remembrance.
Thank you, Greeley. Indeed, it was very sad for me to see my father's decline. But we all follow the same path. I may try your recipe myself!
HI Greeley,
DHEA is on the ball
You are correct, in my opinion: I have 16 years' experience with prescribing DHEA to “all comers” and I can vouch for its efficacy in boosting health, mental health included, via
- Contributing Testosterone and Estrogen, with beneficial effects on mood & confidence
- Reducing cortisol, thus allowing T4-to-T3 conversion and raising FT3
- Providing base material for Neurosteroid synthesis.
So your Rx, DHEA for dementia, is “on the ball” and maybe you should take your own Rx, but the obvious problem is that Lupron's action is exactly the opposite, of DHEA's.
Lupron blocks LH and FSH release
Lupron suppresses LH & FSH output by the Pituitary, leading to:
- ↓ LH→
- ↓ ovarian/testicular progesterone synthesis,
- ↓ Progesterone, →
- ↓ substrate for 5α-reductase,
- ↓ 5α-DHP, →
- ↓ substrate for 3α-HSD,
- ↓ Allopregnanolone, → reduced GABA-A modulation.
This is just an idea, NOT AN INSTRUCTION
In my opinion (I admit that I could be wrong), DHEA will not make your Ca Prostate worse and might improve your prognosis..........
What Lupron actually does
Here is what AI has to say:
Lupron is a GnRH agonist that first stimulates, then down‑regulates pituitary GnRH receptors.
This suppresses LH and FSH output, which reduces testosterone production in the testes.
Less testosterone reduces DHT levels, without blocking 5‑alpha‑reductase.
Lupron does not block 5-alpha reductase (the Progesterone → Allo converting enzyme}.
LUPRON, plus (or, “versus”) DHEA
As to taking both Lupron and DHEA: the word is “imponderable”: They are antagonists.
However here are a couple of thoughts:
- Lupron, by blocking LH & FSH production, prevents neurosteroid synthesis: Rx DHEA should be good.
- DHEA will not boost Testosterone: in the male: it boosts Estrogen.
- DHEA lowers Cortisol output, thus promoting Deiodinase 1, to increase T3 production
- T3 supports alertness and cognition and upgrades all metabolic processes, including Brown Fat activity, so Glucose and Cholesterol metabolism, body temperature adn weight normalise.
- Allopregnanolone (Allo) supports cognition, mood & tranqility and prevents anxiety & depression.
- Lupron reduces Allo by blocking formation of Progesterone, not by blocking conversion to Allo.
- Progesterone + PEA boosts Allopregnanolone, by taking can be helpful in dementia:
NOTE:
- DHEA will not prevent Lupron's Testosterone ablation.
- DHEA does not raise Testosterone: it raises Estrogen, which suppresses Prostate Ca.
- Rx Progesterone will boost Allo, with no effect on Lupron's action.
- PEA (Palmitoyl Ethanol Amide) facilitates Progesterone-to- Allo conversion, thereby improving short-term memory and supporting cognition, mood and initiative.
- In my practice, DHEA reliably reduced serum PSA levels.
The calculation, as to what to do in your circumstances, is yours
To help with your calculation, please see two podcasts, three papers and Wikipedia's notes on Allopregnanolone:
{1) Effect of dehydroepiandrosterone on central and peripheral levels of allopregnanolone and β-endorphin - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028204032194
(2) Urologist Abraham Morgentaler, “Testosterone and Prostate Cancer: Is There a Link?” March 16, 2017 https://grandroundsinurology.com/testosterone-prostate-cancer-link
(3) A. Morgentaler - Testosterone therapy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nemzbt6y1cs
(4) A single CaProstate case of mine - https://gervaisharry.substack.com/p/cancer-cured-by-dhea
(5) My "take", on an article by Jonathan W Nyce - DHEA enables apoptosis of nascent cancer cells, acting as an anti-cancer agent - https://gervaisharry.substack.com/p/dhea-prevents-cancer.
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopregnanolone
CAVEAT
You must derive your own conclusions, but please let me know what you think, "pro", or "con".
As said at the beginning of this note, my faith in the benefits of restoring DHEA (and hormone levels generally) to 20-year-old levels is based on my opinions regarding maintaining hormone balance, as a means of preserving health, supported by literature from Abraham Morrntaler and Fernand Labrie. The possibility that I am wrong exixts, so I offer this information solely in order to increase the breadth of your database and to provide you with "food for thought"; this is neither advice, nor recommendation.
Thanks for that very well researched and written post. Unfortunately, my PSA shot up 10X while taking DHEA, which was worth it for renewal of my mental functioning—my reason for living at 80! I meet with a new Urologist down here in Marietta, Ohio next month. PSA is 2.23 and brain is working, after Lupron throwing me into an Alzheimer’s type dementia. I’ll print off your note and very much appreciate it. BTW, I’m also a Long COVID survivor X5yrs. I very nearly died from the cardiomyocitis. The Pfizer vaxxs saved my life. Have a blessed evening!
"Joe Biden" has prostate cancer...
Yea, and with bone mets. Does anyone know what therapy and why the hell it wasn’t found sooner?
Thank you for your touching lines about your father !
Several months ago, a few American observers, having a good knowledge of such diseases, pointed the fronto-temporal dementia, a receding of the brain and accordingly a loss of synapses, glie, neurons, beginnig near the forehead, and going on.
There are some clues so typical, that when a person who was talking to me about a nonagenerian, a common acquaintance, and how he sometimes rambles, I recognized at once the syndrome described by the authors of posts re this topic. A brilliant man, up to a few years ago, (un confereziere molto ricercato).
At the moment, I retain this hypothesis. You certainly heard about what filtered of the comments Mr. Fico made after his recent visit to DJT in Florida.
Best regards
I had missed Fico's remarks. Now I added them to the post. Thanks!
My father had vascular dementia near the end though probably brought on by inflammation following an earlier cerebral haemorrhage (and/or maybe medication). Anyway I sympathise. Regarding the ‘giant creature’ of civilization, reading again John Simpson’s ‘The wars against Saddam’ and the quotations from President George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld etc, what I see is an ego, or a small bunch of egos, running the show, and the ‘giant creature’ following blindly unable to assess the situation and respond rationally. I think history shows that civilization is (too) easily led. I wonder what AI (Grok?) would have answered in 2003 to the question: “Should I invade Iraq and if so should I depose Saddam or leave him notionally in charge?”.
UK judges and magistrates aren't allowed to practise beyond 75, formerly 70. Jurors must be under 70, which is about to rise to 75. The UK House of Lords will soon have a compulsory retirement age of about 80.
It seems a bit silly if presidents and prime ministers have no age limit. Yet some people, especially on healthy diets, stay sharp and alert until age 101. It seems unfair to deny them a role. Maybe there should have been more checks and balances, i.e. so as to reduce executive power somewhat?
Meanwhile the journalist Peter Oborne has written at least three books on the UK's descent into lying and scandal. It began in about 1980 and accelerated from 1997. Without those disastrous constitutional changes going through, this country would have continued to be admired for its level of integrity in public life. I don't know what's happened over this period in the Scandinavian countries; they used to be regarded as equally non-corrupt.
That's the beauty of democracy. Once you vote a candidate into power, there is no way to remove him until the next elections; where you'll have the chance to replace him with another one just as incompetent, wicked, and evil. At least, old, evil rulers may die of old age, and that seems to be the only way to get rid of the most obnoxious ones.
It may be some white-matter dementia, not Alzheimers, which progresses fairly rapidly.
Trump's biggest problem, transmitted directly to the world at large, may well be Stephen Miller.
;-(
Re tennis balls, here is an extract from 'After virtue' by Alistair Macintyre (1981) apparently inspired by C S Lewis’ 'The abolition of Man.' Rather prescient for its time.
In our present culture differences of view have become incommensurable. There is no common yardstick against which diverse perspectives can be reckoned. For as long as these differences are considered unimportant there can be a naïve celebration of diversity as a good thing in and of itself. But once diversity reveals its inability to arbitrate serious disputes, the pendulum swings to the opposite pole. Hence it is easy to understand why protest becomes a distinctive moral feature of the present age and why indignation is the predominant modern emotion. The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protesters can never win an argument, and the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protesters can never lose an argument either. Hence protest is characteristically addressed to those who already share the protesters’ premises. Protesters rarely have anyone else to talk to but themselves. This is not to say that protest cannot be effective. It’s to say that it cannot be rationally effective, and that its dominant modes of expression give evidence of a certain perhaps unconscious awareness of this.
IM Doc, a commenter on Naked Capitalism, has said that he thinks Trump has white matter disease:
"This is usually manifested as “filter” deficiencies, sudden emotional outbursts, inability to decide, long diatribes and stories about things from decades ago, inability to recognize one’s own mistakes and deficiencies, some mild memory issues but maybe not, increased impulsive and risk-taking behavior, anger and wrath, inappropriate laughing and crying among many others. This disease process also greatly magnifies the underlying personality disorders." (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/trumps-greenland-threats-will-he-or-wont-he-act.html)
As to your larger point, I too feel that the culture at large is demented. When my parents began their descent into dementia a few years ago I found it shockingly familiar, an echo of society at large. People seem not just unwilling but unable to acknowledge the existence of ambivalent or contrary views. Past and future do not exist. Other people do not exist. Past actions are denied, second order effects unthinkable. All that matters is to address the sole thing that I am focused on, the feeling that *I* have *right now* (often overwhelming anxiety). Anything else is an attack. Among some of the elderly I see a physical posture of single minded determination, eyes fixed forward, marching hunched and stiff through any opposition toward a nonsensical goal.
I feel my own mental flexibility declining as I get older, but that doesn't explain the culture at large. I used to think H. P. Lovecraft's talk of a world descending into insanity was purple fantasy. Now it seems all too real. Were we always this mad?
What we don't want to admit to ourselves is everyone starts a mental decline, or change in their 60s (if not late 50s). I don't look at pretty girls because it stirs emotions; I look at them because it fascinates me I once had such emotions. There's nothing I dream about buying. What I do own becomes foreign, strange. Every time I pick up a book I enjoy it but also feel, why bother? I'll forget it soon.
Action adventure movies, always a nice stimulant if I'm bored, no longer.
Either my brain is purposely forgetting things I have to do, or...
If all that is true and you recognize people are getting older (as reported) and there are more of us (with declining birth rates) then yes, your conjecture is true. We don't need a societal ghost in the machine. It's accomplished by all us tired and poorly functioning parts.