# Pregnenolone steal

Category: Metabolism

Also known as: cortisol steal

Pregnenolone steal is a mechanistic concept that Ray Peat explicitly rejected as ignoring the fundamental regulators of steroid synthesis. The theory posits that during stress, the body "shunts" pregnenolone away from producing DHEA and sex hormones, forcing it down a pathway…

12 passages · 2 authors · 2006–2020 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/pregnenolone-steal

## Synthesis

**Pregnenolone steal** is a mechanistic concept that Ray Peat explicitly rejected as ignoring the fundamental regulators of steroid synthesis. [Source 2] The theory posits that during stress, the body "shunts" pregnenolone away from producing **DHEA** and sex hormones, forcing it down a pathway to produce excess **cortisol**, thereby creating deficiencies in other steroids. [Source 3, 11] Peat argued that this framing treats the body as a machine of *leaky buckets and leather strap pulleys*, overlooking the real controlling factors: **thyroid hormone**, **vitamin A**, and cholesterol availability. [Source 2, 3] In a well-nourished organism, sufficient pregnenolone and progesterone are produced to inhibit the stress systems directly, for example by suppressing the release of ACTH from the pituitary, thus minimizing the need for cortisol production in the first place. [Source 2]

The actual relationship between pregnenolone and cortisol is one of normalization, not theft. Peat cited experiments from the 1950s in which rats with elevated cortisol were given a massive dose of pregnenolone; the only hormonal change observed was that their cortisol levels were brought down to normal. [Source 4, 8, 9] He explained that you cannot "push upstream" in the adrenals, and that an abundance of pregnenolone turns off the need for stress hormones. [Source 6, 8] The body produces these precursor steroids in quantities of 30 to 50 milligrams daily, while the daily production of estrogen is on the order of a *small fraction of a microgram*, making it physiologically implausible for a temporary stress response to drain the precursor pool and cause a systemic deficiency. [Source 6] Georgi Dinkov has noted that the only condition where a related conversion—from progesterone to cortisol—has been definitively shown to happen is in the rare pathology of **Cushing's disease**, which has an incidence of only one to two per million people. [Source 7]

The true problem in stress is not a diversion of precursors but a failure to produce them adequately. Peat identified that deficiencies of thyroid, vitamin A, or cholesterol prevent the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone in the mitochondria. [Source 10] When these precursors are lacking, the body can still produce normal or even increased amounts of the terminal stress hormones, **cortisol** and **estrogen**, leading to chronic tissue exposure. [Source 10] This state is compounded by the fact that estrogen itself stimulates ACTH, further driving cortisol production, while pregnenolone acts on the *GABA system* in the brain to signal that stress is under control and halt the pituitary's stress cascade. [Source 5, 9] Thus, the deficiency is not caused by a "steal" but by a metabolic inability to produce the stabilizing steroids that would otherwise keep the stress response in check. [Source 2, 12]

Roddy has elaborated that the "pregnenolone steal" concept relies on viewing hormonal synthesis as a fixed, zero-sum pipeline, a perspective that collapses when examined in the context of the whole organism. [Source 3, 5] In reality, pregnenolone has intrinsic stabilizing activities beyond being a mere precursor; it helps tissues relinquish excess water, restores normal fascial tone, and acts as a stabilizer at all cellular levels. [Source 1, 7] The clinical observation that supplemental pregnenolone can resolve signs of stress, such as normalizing cortisol or reversing the purple skin of emphysema patients, demonstrates its role as a protective, anti-stress agent rather than a raw material to be consumed by pathological pathways. [Source 8, 10] When pregnenolone is inadequate, cortisol is over-produced, but this reflects an underlying energetic and nutritional deficit, not a simple matter of substrate competition. [Source 12]

## People also ask

### Why did Ray Peat reject the idea of a "pregnenolone steal"?

Peat argued the concept ignores the real regulators of steroid synthesis, such as thyroid hormone, vitamin A, and cholesterol availability, and treats the body as a simple machine rather than an organism where sufficient pregnenolone directly inhibits the stress systems.

### How does supplemental pregnenolone actually affect cortisol levels?

Peat cited experiments showing that a large dose of pregnenolone brought elevated cortisol down to normal in rats, demonstrating a normalizing effect rather than a simple diversion of precursors.

### What does the body's daily production of steroids suggest about the "steal" theory?

The body produces 30 to 50 milligrams of precursor steroids daily, while estrogen production is a tiny fraction of a microgram, making it physiologically implausible for a temporary stress response to drain the precursor pool and cause a systemic deficiency.

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## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Positive Thinking, Sleep, and Repair

Ray Peat · Interview · Jun 15, 2018

> ## Pregnenolone Steal
>
> **Andrew Murray:** A listener asked about "pregnenolone steal," where people with worn-out adrenals supposedly have pregnenolone stolen to convert into cortisol. Is that possible?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Whenever you are making cortisol, you are making it from pregnenolone. You should have a huge excess of pregnenolone and progesterone and only make small amounts of the terminal hormones like cortisol and estrogen. The bulk of steroids should be stabilizing materials like pregnenolone. I don't even consider those to be hormones. Pregnenolone helps tissues give up excess water and allows the fascia to regain normal tone. It can make wrinkles in sagging neck skin disappear.

### Source 2 — Pregnenolone

Ray Peat · Email · 2015

> # Pregnenolone
>
> Ordinarily, you can make enough from converting sugar to cholesterol, with thyroid and vitamin A converting cholesterol to the other hormones. But when you have been poisoned with not enough of the needed foods, or too much of the unsaturated oils, heavy metals, causing free radical reactions and so on, then it helps to use all of the supports possible, thyroid supplements, pregnenolone supplements, possibly dhea and progesterone, saturated fats, sugar, everything that works in the same direction.
>
> Pregnenolone is a lipid, only pharmaceutical salesmen talk about the need for a lipid matrix. Most people don't have allergic reactions to the rice and magnesium stearate.
>
> [BAD RESPONSE TO PREG] I think that would be from impurities in the pregnenolone. In animal studies, a dose equivalent to about a pound in a person, caused no change, unless the animal was stressed, and in that case it stopped the stress.
>
> [PREGNENOLONE 'STEAL' THEORY] Regarding the pregnenolone steal theory, It would be interesting to know who started that, it's a mechanical way of thinking about physiology that ignores the things that really matter. thyroid hormone, vitamin A, and cholesterol support the formation of pregnenolone, and the well nourished body is able to make large adjustments in these, to minimize the need for cortisol. In health, enough pregnenolone and progesterone are produced to inhibit the stress systems, for example by inhibiting the release of ACTH. When something prevents the formation of pregnenolone and progesterone, rising ACTH will increase its production as conditions permit, but if something, such as thyroid hormone, is lacking, the ACTH will increase cortisol, often with DHEA and the androgens increasing too, if resources permit; sometimes the stressed system is able to sustain only cortisol and aldosterone production, and that leads to degenerative problems.
>
> Someone recently tested pregnenolone for Beyond a Century, and said it looks pure. Sometimes at first a few hundred milligrams are needed to lower cortisol.
>
> [Is there anything different about taking pregnenolone for someone with a personality disorder, such as psychopathy or borderline personality disorder?] No.

### Source 3 — Pregnenolone Steal Syndrome, Geocentricity & World Ice Theory

Danny Roddy · Article · Nov 12, 2012

> To understand the line of thinking that inspired "pregnenolone steal syndrome," we must first view the body as a machine full of gears, leaky buckets, and leather strap pulleys. Without doing so, "pregnenolone steal syndrome" makes no fucking sense.
>
> Those that advocate the existence of this phenomenon explain that pregnenolone can either be used in the "DHEA pathway" to produce estrogen and testosterone, or the "progesterone pathway" to produce aldosterone and cortisol.
>
> It is said that during stress pregnenolone is "shunted" towards the "progesterone pathway" increasing production of cortisol, and overtime, leaving deficiencies in progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, aldosterone, and estrogen.
>
> Estrogen Deficiency: Evidence For Pregnenolone Steal?
>
> At first glance "pregnenolone steal," in a faulty context, makes a lot of sense, especially when coupled with the pharmaceutical doctrine that is "estrogen deficiency."
>
> For example, if a young woman stops menstruating, she must have a problem with estrogen, because everyone knows that estrogen is "the female hormone." "Pregnenolone steal syndrome" allows for an easy (understandable) mechanic-like explanation.
>
> Some factors that influence estrogen and progesterone synthesis.
>
> When exploring the history and function of estrogen, however, the idea is absurd.
>
> Hans Selye, a pioneer in estrogen research, rejected the idea that estrogen was "the female hormone," and demonstrated that estrogen didn't produce estrus (why it was named) unless simultaneous progesterone was given.
>
> Selye called estrogen "adipin," to more closely align with its production in the fat tissue, but also referred to it as "folliculin" because of the ovarian follicle's significant role in its production.
>
> Far from being "the female hormone" Selye's research focused on estrogen's ability to mimic the first stage of stress (shock), which included:
>
> A decrease in the metabolic rate (thyroid inhibition)
> Destruction of the thymus gland ("immunity central")
> The release of free fatty acids as fuel (reduced ability to use glucose)
> Increased utilization of glycogen reserves (an "anti-stress" factor)
> Increased blood lactate (inflammatory)
>
> In addition to estrogen's forgotten role in stress, lab work used to justify "estrogen deficiency" is highly dubious.

### Source 4 — Generative Energy #35: CO2, Ketosis, and Mitochondria | PUFA, Sugar, Iron, and AGEs | Progesterone and Cell Stability

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 29, 2020 · https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Iz99Wy5JmrbohNj4OZCxP

> ## Progesterone as Anti-Stress
>
> **Ray Peat:** An experiment in rats around 1950 gave them a huge dose of pregnenolone via stomach tube. Before the experiment, a proportion of them had above-normal levels of cortisol. Having received this gigantic dose of pregnenolone, all of them had normal levels of cortisol after that. It bypassed the need to produce cortisol. It works like cholesterol and progesterone to stabilize the organism so you don't need to resort to harmful things like aldosterone and cortisol.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** You mentioned another rat study where they removed the adrenals, but as long as the rat had super-physiological levels of salt or progesterone, it could survive.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Selye noticed that when he had the adrenal glands removed, they died very quickly under stress. But the females that were pregnant survived as long as they were pregnant. He decided to try non-pregnant animals, removing their steroids and supplementing progesterone, and they lived out practically normal, healthy lifespans without adrenal glands. It makes up not only for cortisol but for aldosterone and all of the other functions of the adrenals.

### Source 5 — Pregnenolone Steal Syndrome, Geocentricity & World Ice Theory

Danny Roddy · Article · Nov 12, 2012

> It has been found that estrogen increases with age and while serum levels can be low, tissue levels can be very high.
>
> Side Note: While taking estrogen can decrease symptoms in some menopausal women, it should be noted that the pituitary gonadotrophins, FSH and LH, which when elevated can cause many problems (they're sometimes called the "menopausal hormones"), can be suppressed with estrogen supplementation. P.W. Wise found that regulatory nerves in the brain responsible for releasing FSH and LH were "desensitized" in relation to their exposure to estrogen.
>
> Pregnenolone In The Real Organism
>
> Like adrenal fatigue, being "diagnosed" with "pregnenolone steal syndrome" casts a totally wack context for achieving wellness.
>
> [references]
>
> In the above scenario, taking supplemental pregnenolone could contribute to the over-production of cortisol, while a case could be made for supplementing estrogen.
>
> Outside the context of pharmaceutical physiology, you'll find that hormonal synthesis doesn't work like the pictures and diagrams you find when you type "pregnenolone steal" into Google.
>
> Far from increasing cortisol, supplemental pregnenolone, or simply increasing our own production, inhibits the pituitary's release of ACTH, which signals the adrenal glands to produce cortisol.
>
> Moreover, estrogen stimulates ACTH, increasing cortisol.
>
> When approaching the idea of "optimizing" our own production of pregnenolone, it seems logical to start with where it's produced, the cell.
>
> The Cell: Pregnenolone HQ
>
> In the first step of sugar metabolism, glucose is broken down in a process known as glycolysis, providing two molecules of pyruvate and a small amount of ATP.
>
> Next, pyruvate enters the mitochondria where it is further metabolized by the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex into acetyl-CoA. This process decarboxylates pyruvate, which means that it releases carbon dioxide.
>
> Note: This is especially important, because pyruvate decarboxylation is a step not found in the oxidation of fatty acids and provides a significant amount of carbon dioxide. Among its many functions, carbon dioxide increases the oxygenation of tissues, referred to as the Bohr effect.)

### Source 6 — ORN 2020-05-18 — Dr. Peat on Epidemic of Words, Testing, Amount of Thyroid, Brittlizing Hormone

Ray Peat · Interview · May 18, 2020

> **Patrick Timpone:** okay oh go ahead.
>
> **Ray Peat:** As in the rat, its effect when you have a slight excess of pregnenolone is to lower your cortisol to normal and an elevated cortisol is one of the things that increases estrogen and so when when you're blocking the stress reaction with an abundance of pregnenolone you're turning off the need for these other stress hormones and where the body will make, a human body will make, on the order of 30 to 50 milligrams a day of pregnenolone and progesterone and a five milligrams of testosterone and probably around fifty milligrams of DHEA, the daily dose produced in the body of estrogen is on the order of of a small fraction of a microgram. One one microgram per day is as an effective estrogenic dose, so the quantity of these precursor hormones, if they're adequate, they tend to turn off these microscopic downstream hormones so you will never have an increased conversion to estrogen or cortisol from an excess of pregnenolone or progesterone.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** okay Dr. Ray Peat, Patrick Timpone [commercial break]
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** [1:18:10] oneradio network doctor Ray Peat, PhD, on our show and he's here the second hour, the third Monday of each month or 10:30 Central Time. So more things. this one here I wanted to see if I can this is Lindsey. I'm sorry that I lose Lindsey she had a thing about she's gonna have babies and she's got a baby here she is. She's gonna have babies in a two years or so wants to know how she can balance things out with her progesterone and and and regulate progesterone hormone for better health and prepare for a child in a couple of years, and she is also another one bleeding during ovulation.

### Source 7 — The Youth Steroids: Pregnenolone, Progesterone & DHEA [Generative Energy #8]

Danny Roddy (with Danny Roddy) · Interview · Oct 8, 2015 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXkxViFxk9A

> **Danny Roddy:** There's a large group of people that think that they have made something up called pregnenolone steel, and they think that pregnenolone can be made into cortisol. Do you think that is possible?
>
> **Georgi Dinkov:** I would say that technically it's possible if you look at the steroid pathways. If you look at some studies with humans, I believe that the only conditions where this has been shown to happen, and not from pregnenolone as a source material, but only from progesterone, The only condition where this has been shown definitively to happen is Cushing syndrome or Cushing disease, which is a pathological condition with an excess production of cortisol. Now, unless you have that, and that is a very rare condition, the incidence is about one to two per million people. Unless you have that, I don't believe that the term prenatal steel has been observed in practice. In other words, if you have it, and if you have confirmed to have it, you probably have other more serious conditions to worry about.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** And then typically these hormones play a balance with the variety of stress hormones. So like cortisol, aldosterone, estrogen, prolactin. So what happens if you were to come under a pretty serious stress in a single day? What would happen to your production or what should happen to your production of the youth associated hormones? And what typically happens as a person ages and they lose the capacity to produce these hormones?

### Source 8 — Jodellefit: Insulin Resistance, Vegans, Low Cortisol, Bone Broth, and Coconut

Ray Peat · Interview · Jan 16, 2020

> ## Adrenal Insufficiency and Cortisol
>
> **Jodelle Fitzwater:** Would that be something they would want to look into supplementing?
>
> **Ray Peat:** In experiments on rats 60 years ago, they looked at the hormone levels of rats under stress. Some had higher than average cortisol. They gave them a gigantic dose of pregnenolone—equivalent to a cup full of powder for a person. There were no changes in their steroid hormones except for the ones who were under stress to start with; it brought their cortisol down to normal. You can't "push upstream" in the adrenals. The more pregnenolone or progesterone you take, the more normal you become. It is the endpoint hormones—like aldosterone, estrogen, and cortisol—that are produced normally only in extreme situations to deal with specific problems. If you supplement those beyond what the body would be making, then you have potential problems.
>
> **Jodelle Fitzwater:** So supplementing pregnenolone might be an easy fix rather than cortisol?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yes. There was a well-known book about 20 or 30 years ago on the natural use of hydrocortisone (cortisol). The data he based it on showed that a tiny supplement, like 5 or 10 micrograms, could improve a woman's menstrual cycle. However, I happen to know some of his patients who were given what he called a "physiological dose" of natural cortisol—about 20 milligrams per day, which is what the body normally makes. After two or three months, they all started getting puffy faces—typical Cushing's disease symptoms. Supplementing that can be risky.

### Source 9 — Cholesterol and Saturated Fats East West Healing

Ray Peat · Interview · 2011

> **Ray Peat:** Several signals can tell your brain that you are suffering stress. For example low blood sugar is one of the basic things. The various things that amount to stress act on the stability regulators of brain cells. The GABA is a sleep-inducing peptide fragment of the glutamic amino acid. Glutamic acid excites the brain. If you take off the acid, it becomes gamma-amino butyric acid, which sedates the brain. And the stressed brain will activate enzymes to produce GABA and turn off the excitation. There are specific peptide signals that act parallel with glutamic acid to excite the brain and to interfere with GABA, the stabilizer. The Valium type of sedative, or tranquilizer, acts on the GABA stabilizing system of the brain. If something is preventing the glutamic acid from being turned into sufficient amounts of GABA, valium will fill in and activate the GABA system. And activating the GABA system turns off the stress signals, and stops the pituitary from producing ACTH to activate the adrenal cortex. Progesterone and pregnenolone, and many other things, act on the GABA, the receptor system. Pregnenolone happens to be one that doesn't have many other hormone-like effects; it's basically a stabilizer at all levels of cells. In the brain, its effect is on the GABA system to imitate valium, to tell your pituitary that the stress is under control and to stop producing so much cortisol. So, in early experiments testing the toxicity of pregnenolone, someone gave a group of mice or rats 10g of powdered pregnenolone made into a slurry, injected into their stomachs. They didn't have any appetite for a few hours because being so full of powdered pregnenolone. But the only hormonal effect that they saw was that some of the animals that had been stressed, and had excessive cortisol or corticosterone before the dose of pregnenolone: when they were getting the huge dose, they were normalized.

### Source 10 — It’s Rainmaking Time — Energy-Protective Materials (June 2014)

Ray Peat · Interview · Jun 14, 2014 · http://l-i-g-h-t.com/files/rainmaking-time-energy-protective-materials.mp4

> **Ray Peat:** When we metabolize cholesterol what happens is under the influence of thyroid hormone, which stimulates oxidation and vitamin A, which activates the enzymes to clip a chain off cholesterol. Thyroid and Vitamin A are the factors we need mostly, for producing pregnenolone from cholesterol. So if you’re low in cholesterol or thyroid or vitamin A, you’re necessarily going to be deficient in pregnenolone. And pregnenolone is the immediate precursor to progesterone and DHEA. Progesterone is the precursor to cortisol; DHEA is the precursor to testosterone, and other androgens and oestrogen. If you are deficient in the precursors, the body will still have the ability to make a normal or even increased amount of the end hormone, which in the extreme situation tend to be cortisol and oestrogen. The deficiencies of thyroid and/or Vitamin A and/or cholesterol, will because not making enough pre-­‐ cursor, will tend to expose your body chronically to high oestrogen and high cortisol. And when you get the precursors, it happens that pregnenolone inhibits the stress process, and turns down your ACTH and adrenal hormone activity. So that in itself it blocks the effects of those hormones but at the same time it’s blocking the production of those hormones. And so it is doing many things, protecting against the harmful stress mediators and in itself it works somewhat like CO2 that stabilizing cells so I’ve seen people, for example, with emphysema who were purple because they couldn’t get enough oxygen. In just a few days they were back to normal colour, breathing, walking upstairs and no problem and so on. Progesterone has that same effect on the lungs ­‐ getting rid of excess water so that oxygen can get through the bloodstream, and in inflamed joints it has the same effect releasing water that shouldn’t be there.

### Source 11 — Pregnenolone Steal Syndrome, Geocentricity & World Ice Theory

Danny Roddy · Article · Nov 12, 2012

> # Pregnenolone Steal Syndrome, Geocentricity & World Ice Theory
>
> [references]
>
> I devoted 5 years of my life to Apple Retail. Well, devoted might be too strong of a word. I was "there" though (physically).
>
> My day-to-day involved working "the queue" making sure that everyone with a broken Mac, iPhone, or iPod Nano received my help.
>
> Oh, you moved the hard drive into the trash?
>
> Oh, you spilled Fat Tire all over your keyboard?
>
> Oh, you dropped your Nano Pod in the toilet?
>
> Answers to these questions required little or no use of my brain. However, about every other day or so, I would meet the original-customer-from-hell, requiring significant adaptation for a high-stakes battle of mental chess.
>
> While my coworkers chose to self-medicate in the mall parking lot, I would take various pharmaceuticals, herbs, hormones, and vitamins in hopes of becoming more resilient in these intermittent situations. If something was able to brighten my disposition towards the businessman that dropped his computer in the bathtub and wanted me to replace it for him—for free—then whatever I was doing probably had a measurable effect.
>
> One product I experimented with extensively was pregnenolone. As we discussed in the Becoming Stress Proof Email Series, pregnenolone is produced from active thyroid hormone (triiodothyronine, or T3), vitamin A, and low-density lipoprotein, or LDL in the energy apparatus of the cell, the mitochondria. Used in the first stage of hormone synthesis, the production of youthful, anti-stress hormones depends on its availability.
>
> However, there are some strange ideas floating around in regards to pregnenolone. While I'm not exactly sure where it originated, you will not find the concept in "the scientific literature," nor will your physician be able keep a straight face if you suggest it as a cause of illness.
>
> Naturopath Sayz I Got The Pregnenolone Steal
>
> "Pregnenolone Steal Syndrome" - Pregnenolone is used to produce cortisol leaving a deficiency in progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, aldosterone, and estrogen.
>
> To understand the line of thinking that inspired "pregnenolone steal syndrome," we must first view the body as a machine full of gears, leaky buckets, and leather strap pulleys.

### Source 12 — The problem of Alzheimer's disease as a clue to immortality Part 2

Ray Peat · Article · 2006 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/alzheimers2.shtml

> When pregnenolone is inadequate, cortisol is over-produced.
>
> When progesterone is deficient, estrogen's effect is largely unopposed.
>
> When both thyroid and progesterone are deficient, even fat cells synthesize estrogen.
>
> ## THE NATURE OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE
>
> Although Alzheimer's disease until recently referred to a certain type of organic dementia occurring in people in their thirties, forties and fifties (presenile dementia), structural similarities seen in senile dementia have caused the term to lose its original meaning. Alzheimer's sclerosis of blood vessels, and even the death of nerve cells, are sometimes neglected in favor of the more stylish ideas, emphasizing certain proteins that cause the tangles and plaques. Until recently, the "tangles" were commonly interpreted as the debris left after the death of a cell, rather than as one of the processes causing the death of the cell. Alzheimer-type dementia is different from other dementias, but it overlaps with them, and with age-related and stress-related changes in other organs.
>
> Physical signs (seen at autopsy) of AD:
>
> 1. Death of neurons (increase of glial cells)
> 2. Amyloid plaques (extracellular), associated with a particular variant of apolipoprotein E, the epsilon 4 allele
> 3. Fibrillary tangles (intracellular, or remaining after the rest of the cell has disappeared)
> 4. Amyloid in blood vessels.
>
> Functional and biochemical observations:
>
> 1. The mitochondrial energy problem, cytochrome oxidase and its regulation; body temperature/pulse-rate cycle disturbance; lipid peroxidation; respiratory defect; altered amino acid uptake; memory impairment; dominance of the excitatory systems vs. the inhibitory adenosine/GABA/progesterone /pregnenolone system. Increased calcium uptake, which is associated with lipid peroxidation and cell death. Increased cortisol and DHEA.
> 2. Deposit of abnormal proteins, such as transthyretin-amyloid; albumin binding of PUFA, vs. transport of thyroid and retinol. Beta-glucuronidase increases, depositing estrogen in cells. (A. J. Cross, et al., "Cortical neurochemistry in Alzheimer-type dementia," Chapter 10, pages 153-170 in Aging of the Brain and Alzheimer's Disease, Prog. in Brain Res.

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