Protection against radiation by dehydroepiandrosterone,androstenediol,and androstenetriol

Dehydroepiandrosterone(DHEA)was considered to be a biologically irrelevant interme-diate in the pathway of steroid hormones.DHEA provides one of the first avenues by which the im-mune system can be globally regulated to increase resistance to a variety of lethal infections.The downstream metabolites of DHEA particularly androstenediol(AED)and androstenetriol(AET)were sig-nificantly more efficacious at preventing morbidity and mortality associated with viral and bacterial in-fection.