I also have understood that to be true. Athough DHEA is one of the main factors in producing lots of goodies in the male body, whe taken orally the digestive process destroys most of it, so I always thought it was not effective. Also you can buy it from GNC since it was not banned a few years ago with all the other pro-hormones or test precursurs so since the gov left it alone I just assumed it must not be effective since they left it alone. That however may not be accurate, just kind of the feeling I get. It just seems anything that is fairly effective, seems to get banned shorly after it comes out and people begin to see results