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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steroids are wrong
What a load of garbage. This article is as valid as the movie "Reefer Madness". Let's look at cold hard FACTS. First of all, there's far more danger in consuming alcohol or tobacco than Anabolic Steroids. Why not write a piece about that? Every other illegal drug (except for Marijuana) is more dangerous than anabolic steroids. Many OTC legal drugs are more dangerous than AAS! This article is nothing more than a hyped up scare piece. I want my 2 minutes back. Waste of time to read.
Your understanding of steroid is sketchy at best -
the type of steroids you mention for brain cancer - are cortico-steroids, and actually shrink and weaken muscle tissue, anabolic steroids build muscle, with low androgenic effects, and lastly there are androgens - which are used to replace low male hormone levels.........technichally, any sex hormone is a "steroid" ...... so any type of birth-control pill is also a "steroid"........you've obviously been educated on this through media commentary
Your opinions are seriously flawed...and your comparisons are not even relevant......
my mistake, only oral steriods taken in high doses can cause liver failure.
Like the many others who have commented, define abuse. There can be no medical proof of abuse because there have never been any studies on steriod abuse. Also most of the medical defects you have writen are not true, there are no links to any type of cancer, liver failure, hair loss, you will only experience that if baldness runs in the family, and last but not least, personality change, no proof, you only become more confident, and you just bcome more aggressive if you where that way before, and psychosis, come on now not possible, that sympthom has been proven only to come from expeirences in life, no drug can do that. I am neither for nor against steriod use but I just feel that people should be properly informed. Ooooo performance enhancing is cheating, so if they came out with a drug that can make you smarter, and had the same side effects would they be illeagal?
Nathan has it right - all the way across the board.....
To be correct there had been a study on the abuse of steroids. They aren't getting the right point of how it is abused. now surley i don't know why they do it i'm not a athlete anywway. so suck it bitch...............
Thanks for your comments - I read every one with interest even though I may disagree with what is said. The longer the comments, the more likely they are to be read by some of the 12 million different people who have used this site to find out more about their future. You will also find more resources on www.youtube.com - 2 million video views on future issues. Patrick Dixon - site author and Futurist.
I am somebody who has used steroids and it is the biggest mistake I made in my life. I am suffering from a lot of side effects. Do not touch steroids you will regret it.
hello, wat roids did u use, 4 how long, n wat rthe side effects u got.
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 feel if you do not have the stamina to perform on your own, you should leave it to the more fit. Why would you inject or ingest yourself continuosly, if not for medical purposes? Its as pathetic as a heroin addict. Maybe you have no side effects now, give it 10 years. You cannot continuosly pump your liver full of synthetic drugs and expect it to function the same. Seriously? I work in a hospital, so not everyone has an UNEDUCATED approach to the subject. Good Luck
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
wow thats interesting
i think ur an idiot for taking them steriods
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
