Steroids - The Truth about Steroids
Futurist Topics - Health
Picture: National Institute of Drug Abuse
Why steroids are so powerful and so dangerous if abused
Steroids are natural substances with many different effects in the human body, which begin over several days. The primary use of steroids in health care is to reduce inflammation and other disease symptoms. Steroid inhalers have an important role in reducing deaths from asthma, local steroid injections are useful in treating painful joints and ligaments. Steroid creams are used extensively to treat eczema and other inflammatory skin conditions. Steroids make the whole immune system less active, which can be very useful in illnesses where there is an immune component - a huge number. Steroids are the ultimate anti-inflammatory drugs.
However steroid use in medicine is limited by very serious side effects in the body as a whole. That is why steroids tend to be used sparingly in local preparations such as sprays and creams, which ensure maximum steroid dose where it is needed, and minimum levels in the blood stream.
Steroid use in medicine and health care
Steroid skin creams for example cause thinning and weakness of the skin, while steroids also cause calcium to leak out of bones so that they weaken and fracture spontaneously. Steroids also make people feel very hungry and cause blood sugar to rise. People on steroids can gain weight and often develop a typical "moon face" as well as getting diabetes.
Another serious steroid problem is that we all need aggressive immune systems to fight infections and cancers, but steroids knock that out. People on high doses of steroids for medical reasons can die from chest infections and cancers of many kinds. We see these patterns in those who receive organ transplants, who need often need huge doses of steroids to stop the body from destroying the donated tissue. Cancers often develop, which shows us how important our white cells are in keeping us cancer-free, and how often all of us develop cancer in our daily lives. Most of us may have two or three tiny cancers inside us at any time. Taking high dose steroids makes it more likely one of these will develop rapidly.
People on high dose steroids are immune-deficient in every way so that many organisms that rarely cause problems can overgrow, totally upsetting the normal balance of mircobes in the body. An example is candida yeast which can grow rapidly in the mouth causing painful thrush.
Effects of steroids on brain and cancer
Steroids also affect the brain, and high doses can make people feel happy, euphoric, hyped-up, with disturbance of sleep and even serious psychiatric illness such as mania, very aggressive behavior and psychosis (delusions, pananoia, loss of touch with reality). If steroid users are also taking other drugs which affect mood or brain function, these side-effects can be far more common.
Steroids are really useful in the care of those with advanced cancer when short life expectancy from their condition means physicians are far more relaxed about long term side-effects.
Brain tumours often respond dramatically to steroids. The reason is that the brain is contained in a bony box inside the skull and pressure can build up inside the head, resulting in headaches, sickness, drowsiness and other problems. Brain scans often show that a tunour the size of a wallnut can be surrounded by a big immune reaction, with brain swelling and inflammation. Steroids reduce the additional swelling, often reversing symptoms and buying time - maybe a few weeks. The underlying cancer continues to grow and if the person finally begins to deteriorate death often follows rapidly as the steroid dose is reduced.
So steroids are really powerful, with wide ranges of actions, producing dramatic effects ranging from pain relief to mood elevation, and if it were not for the very serious side effects they would be used even more often.
The body becomes dependent on steroids and when used in health care, most physicians reduce dosage gradually, even though they may start in an acute illness with a very high dose.
Why do people abuse steroids?
So why on earth would anyone who is perfectly healthy want to take steroids? The reason is that one particular type, anabolic steroids, have another side effect which is to stimulate muscle growth. Sadly for the sports enthusiast, this effect only works well if steroid level in the body as a whole is quite high, and that guarantees problems with side effects.
Taking steroids won't increase muscle bulk without exercise but the normal response to exercise is exaggerated.
Often you will find underlying psychological reasons why people abuse steroids in muscle building. Some studies suggest up to 25% have been physically or sexually abused as children or attacked as adults and are highly motivated to make themselves powerful and resistant to future attack. Others have a body image problem similar to anorexia nervosa, so that they see a weak and feeble body in the mirror - muscle dysmorphia. In some, steroid abuse is just a part of a wider picture of risk-taking.
Anabolic and Androgenic steroids
Steroids can be divided into two types: anabolic and androgenic, but the distinction in some ways is artificial. Anabolic steroids mainly affect metabolism, immunity and muscle, while androgenic steroids have strong masculinisation effects on women and sometimes feminisation effects on men. But all anabolic steroids will increase masculine characteristics such as thick facial hair if the dose used is significant.
Steroid cycling is a regular pattern of steroid use and non-use by athletes or body builders, the aim being to get maximum action with minimum side-effects, often by using a wide variety of different steroid preparations at the same time (stacking), and perhaps to avoid detection by timing non-use to coincide with major competitions where steroids testing may be imposed.
Some steroid abuses use pyramidding - starting with low doses and building up over days or weeks to a peak dose and then tailing off.
Anabolic steroid side effects
Typical problems you will find in people who abuse anabolic steroids include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice (yellow skin from liver failure), retention of fluid, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, increases in LDL (dangerous form of cholesterol), kidney cancer, acne and trembling.
Men may find their testes shrink, sperm count falls with increase of infertility, their hair falls out, breasts start to develop, and prostate cancer becomes more likely. More than half of body-builder sterod abusers will typically experience enlarged breasts and shrunken male organs.
Women can start looking like men: growing beards, going bald, voice breaking - while their menstrual cycle changes or stops, and the clitoris enlarges.
Steroid abuse is particularly risky for teenagers, because it forces the body rapidly to adulthood, bones stop growing - permanently - and they reach puberty early.
Adolescents--growth halted prematurely through premature skeletal maturation and accelerated puberty changes.
And of course, steroid injecting carries all the other risks associated with other injecting drug use, such as infection with HIV, and hepatitis B or hepatitis C.
How many people abuse steroids?
Some surveys suggest that 2.5% of high school pupils in the US will have taken illegal steroids at some time. This is particularly worrying considering the very high risks of steroid abuse in those under the age of 18.
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yes juice has side but there are also medicines out there to combat them. Most bodybuilders who use steroids thst i know are amonst the most educated and articulate on the subject, many of them do not drink or smoke and generally eat wholefoods and maintain excellent state of health, yet the broad public think it's ok to demonise them as the buy 20 cigarettes and binge on alcohol all weekend......
I just want to say I think this article is typical ridiculousness. Someone cited what they believe is truth based off nothing more than what they've heard or read from other uneducated people. John said it best...there's a difference between "use" and "abuse." And honestly, and I speak from experience here...you have to be going completely out of your way and have alot of money to "abuse" steroids. Also, this was said by John, why don't we see the entire NFL dropping dead like flies? Why don't almost all the professional athletes we see have severe side effects? And as I am an experienced steroid USER, I can tell when a man is on "the juice"...which is more than 50% of the NFL. In conclusion, I just want to tell everybody that this whole article is just a scare tactic as usual. I used steroid PROPERLY many times as have many colleagues...not one of us ever had the horrible side effects this article speaks of and some of these guys were taking an aweful lot of gear. I'm not saying there aren't side effects from steroid use or abuse...but definitely not anything close to the way this article describes. For those of you prescribed normal amounts of steroids for medical purposes....you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
I have gained a lot of weight in one year is there any steriods that can help me lose weight faster while im working out in the gym.
she use to take steroids at the time of pregnency according to the doctors prescription. She got delivery before 2 months now her Creatinine level is high its 2.13 and the doctor has done biopsy of kidney And reports states that One core with 9 glomeruli. All the glomeruli show mesangial Hypercellularity with mild neutrophilic exudation and matrix expansion. There is no Evidence of basement Membrance Thickening or crescents. Interstitium Shows Diffuse Dense Mixed Inflammation Along with focal Fibrosis and patchy Tubular atrophy and now they are giving the steroids will this cause any problem
'My latest liver enzymes were elevated AST-113 ALT-88. I use a LOT of topical steroid cream for mod/severe psoriasis. Can this affect my liver?'
I'm doing an addictive drug project and this site is incredibly helpful!
i bn using steroids for 4 years and my opinon is they are addictive...... 1st of id cycle but i got to a point were i couldnt handle the wait loss so now im always on them they are very powerful drugs dangerous i do not now bu boy they work id advise to study them before you try
Hmmm. Very interesting.
I certainly do not profess any expertise on the subject of steroids and neither advocate nor condemn their use by athletes or anyone else. That said, I do find a couple things about your piece a bit disturbing and dubious.
You speak of "abuse" and then in response to a question define "abuse" as any use not prescribed for a medical condition. This is specious, I believe, given that your article talks of all those terrifying side effects being a result of "abuse".
I could understand if you ascribed side effects to "misuse" - i.e. prolonged, unregulated, or otherwise careless use - but as worded your article implies that any non-medical use risks catastrophe.
You are free to believe that and to state it, of course, but I am always more than a tad skeptical when sweeping declarations of this sort are not accompanied by references and citations allowing readers to check the science themselves. Lacking such references, such statements smack of (unfounded) personal opinion.
If the "typical" side effects you describe are indeed "typical" when steroids are "abused" (used other than pursuant to a prescription), why is this not manifested in hundreds of prematurely balding Major League baseball players, male Olympic swimmers and sprinters with boobs, etc etc etc.?
Have people died, lost hair, or destroyed livers as a result of steroid us? Probably. Just as people have died, lost hair, and destroyed livers as a result of alcohol use. And just as people have died from taking aspirin. These facts tell us nothing of value, absent scientific study documenting circumstances and details such as amounts, purity of product, dosages, frequency of use, longevity of use and so forth.
I truly don't wish to be critical but, frankly, your piece reads more like hysteria than informed fact.
John
Hi, A very interesting article on the negatives of steroid abuse. What would be helpfull is if you could highlight what actually defines "abuse". Is it the use of steroids without medical advice or is there a limit that if taken over would be classed as abuse. I have just started a course of Dianabol and am looking forward to the positive effects of muscle growth accelaration in the gym. I am aware of the possible side effects but as with all illegal substances these are over hyped in the media and as such not as risky as they are made out.
If possible it would be good to have the positives of taking steroids and why this is so prevalent in sport supported by the government. There are purposefully not enough drug tests out there to enable athletes to improve and compete at the level they do after all, everyone loves to see records broken in the olympics and without the use of steroids this would not be possible to the extent that has been recorded to date. MAny thanks for your time I look forward to your response.
Most people would term steroid abuse as use of steroids which are not prescribed for a medical condition, but just as performance enhancers. Steroids have major side effects and taking them when you do not need to can be dangerous.
Sports regulators are doing all they can to ensure a "level playing field" so no one has an unfair advantage through rigourous testing though it does not pick up everything.
How long do steroids stay in the system? A local group of high school ball players need to be tested and I don't know what the window is. Anyone out there have info?
I do not have info on this.... but testing is getting more and more sensitive. If you are even thinking about it. DOn't use them!
Most steroids stay in the system for many months...others weeks. If someones using them or just finished using them then chances are they will be caught...no problem.
im really skinny and I just want to grow some wait!
I workout alot and I eat alot but I cant seem to grow!
would steroids kill me if I take it at my age?
Dangerous - do not even think about it. Patrick
You have a fast metabolism it sounds like. Steroids are a bad idea though. You should go see the doctor about putting on some weight!
dont not use them..you are still growing and you still have HGH in your system..i wouldnt recommend using them until you are full grown if at all. 16 is way way to young to be using..start with simple supplements like vit- b12 and weight gainer shakes...it helps
