CHICAGO — Before puberty hits, biology hands every child a brief moment of hormonal perfection. Around ages 11 and 12, boys and girls produce nearly identical levels of pregnenolone and progesterone. Their thyroid hormone T3 peaks — the highest it will ever be in their lives.
Researcher Georgi Dinkov calls this a biological sweet spot. After that, for most people, it is a slow drift away.
That drift is the backdrop for a growing argument among health experts: that supplementation with four specific hormones could bring adults closer to that pre-pubescent baseline. The argument, laid out recently by Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dinkov, is not about treating disease. It is about addressing what they see as a near-universal deficiency in the modern world.
Mercola is direct about the problem. In an ideal world, where someone had truly optimal health, hormone replacement would be unnecessary.
The body would make what it needs. But he says very few people meet that standard — himself included. We live in a polluted world.
“Optimal health” is a high bar for all of us. The four hormones are progesterone, thyroid hormone T3, DHEA, and pregnenolone. Three of them — progesterone, DHEA, and pregnenolone — are available over the counter.
No prescription needed. T3 is the exception.
It requires a doctor’s prescription and regular blood tests, typically two to four times a year. Overtreatment can trigger hyperthyroid symptoms. That is something anyone considering this approach clearly wants to avoid.
Why these four? Dinkov’s observation about the hormonal profile of 11- and 12-year-olds offers a clue.
That age is not arbitrary. It is just before the hormonal upheaval of puberty. At that moment, the system is balanced.
Pregnenolone and progesterone are high. Thyroid function is at its peak. The implication is straightforward: as we age, we lose that balance.
Supplementation, the argument goes, is an attempt to restore it. Mercola frames the issue as a practical one.
In a polluted environment, the body’s natural hormone production falters. The question is not whether supplementation is ideal. It is whether the alternative — living with suboptimal levels — is worse.
He argues it is. The conversation reflects a broader shift in how some doctors and researchers think about hormones.
For decades, the medical mainstream treated hormone replacement as a niche intervention for specific conditions — menopause, hypothyroidism, adrenal insufficiency. The idea that a large swath of the general adult population might benefit from raising their levels of progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone, or T3 is still controversial. But it is gaining traction.
Critics point to risks. Overtreatment with thyroid hormone can cause heart palpitations, anxiety, and bone loss. Long-term effects of over-the-counter hormone supplements like DHEA and pregnenolone are not fully studied.
The FDA does not regulate them as drugs. Mercola and Dinkov do not dismiss these concerns.
They simply argue that the risk of doing nothing — of letting hormone levels drift lower year after year — may be greater. The practical upshot for the average reader is this: you do not necessarily need a complicated medical workup to start. Three of the four hormones are on store shelves.
The fourth requires a doctor. But the decision is not casual.
It rests on a single, blunt assessment: how far from that 11-year-old baseline have you drifted? And is the gap worth closing?
