Archive for March, 2010

The manager of Texas Rangers, Ron Washington, had tested positive for cocaine during the 2009 season as per recent reports.

“I did make a mistake and I regret that I did it”, Washington told Sportsillustrated.CNN.com by phone from Surprise, Arizona.

Washington rendered an apology that was accepted by the Rangers. He was retained on the assurance that he would not be repeating such kind of a mistake in the future.

From Sportsillustrated.cnn.com:

Major league managers, coaches and other clubhouse personnel have been subject to drug testing since 2008, when MLB adopted the measure as one of George Mitchell’s recommendations as part of his report regarding steroid and drug use in baseball. MLB mandates that any non-playing personnel who either fail a test or admit to drug use be subject to counseling and a substance-abuse program developed by a doctor approved by baseball. First-time offenders are generally not subject to punitive measures such as a suspension, pending the commissioner’s discretion, and their names are not made public. (Tests are administered randomly once a year to all non-playing personnel who work around the clubhouse, which also includes trainers, clubhouse and equipment managers, massage therapists and traveling secretaries.) So by calling MLB headquarters even before his test results were known, Washington was subjecting himself to the substance-abuse program regardless of the results.

“I cannot comment on anyone in the program unless it’s a performance-enhancing substance issue,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney wrote in an e-mail to SI.com on Tuesday.

The Rangers were initially quite alarmed at cocaine admission of their manager but retained him after Washington said that this was a one-time transgression and would not be repeated again.

When it comes to an effective aromatase inhibitor, the mention of Cytadren comes at the first place.

Cytadren, which is also known as Aminoglutethimide, is an effective inhibitor of desmolase (an enzyme required for steroid production in the body). This drug is considered to be exemplary when use of aromatizable steroids is the basic intention of steroid users.

In the world of bodybuilding, Cytadren is an effective antiestrogen especially in the stage of post cycle therapy. Since this drug can easily inhibit the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone, it is admired by bodybuilders when it comes to reducing or eliminating the formation of estrogens.

It is considered to be second to none while a sportsman or bodybuilder is dieting for a contest. The characteristics of this drug are of great worth when the circulating androgens get totally replaced by synthetic androgens during dieting and before the contest. This is an effective antiestrogen for all those sportsmen who want to stay away from the possible side effects of harsh steroids or aromatizable steroids that could have led to side effects such as gynecomastia and fluid retention.

In addition to all these benefits, Cytadren is also useful because of its unique anti-depressive properties.

Recommended Dose

The recommended dose of Cytadren is 100-200 mg/day, with or without meals. The use of Cytadren must be recommended by a qualified medical practitioner else a situation of substance abuse is not far away.

We hope that this information on Cytadren, the effective aromatase inhibitor, helped you to gain a clear and complete insight on this miracle drug.

When it comes to treating a common viral lower respiratory infection in infants, bronchiolitis, steroid medications are not effective in terms of ensuring improvements in the level of respiratory symptoms or preventing hospitalization.

The finding was revealed by the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) and appeared in an issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

From News-Medical.Net:

“This study provides solid evidence to guide treatment of this common illness,” said Joseph Zorc, M.D., an emergency physician at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and a lead co-investigator. “Current recommendations suggest that simple supportive care is the best available treatment for bronchiolitis. This study will help resolve some of the uncertainty for physicians and families and prevent unnecessary side effects.”

Both physicians note that glucocorticoid medications still play an important role in other respiratory illnesses of childhood such as asthma and croup. They point out these medications are not the androgenic steroids sometimes abused by athletes, and that the side effects seen with long-term steroid use are not a risk in the short-course treatments used for croup and asthma attacks.

Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, chair of the PECARN network’s steering committee, and the senior investigator of the study, said that the authority of a research network like PECARN is highlighted and reaffirmed when it comes to resolving the difficult-to-answer questions.

When it comes to hiding your success secret (steroid use) during doping tests, diuretics are exemplary drugs. Let us read about them to gain a clear and complete understanding.

Diuretics are prescription or over-the-counter drug products such as bumetanide (Bumex) and furosemide (Lasix) that augment diuresis or fluid removal from the body via urination. They are commonly used by steroid users before the start of a competitive event for gaining advantages over their peers. The fact that use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs can be kept hidden with the use of diuretics is something that is admired by sportsmen, especially bodybuilders and strength athletes.

In addition to enhancing performance, diuretics are also used for losing excess body weight without any troubles. Easy and safe to use, diuretics can be used by any one but only after a round of consultation with a qualified healthcare professional. It is important to note here that use of low-grade or abuse of diuretics can lead to potential side effects such as potassium deficiency and dehydration.

In the world of medicines, diuretics are also used to treat people suffering from edema and high blood pressure. This is done by stimulating an increase in the urine production for fluid release and getting rid of excess body salts besides reduction of blood volume.

Availability of Diuretics

Diuretics are usually available in an injectable form but one can find natural diuretics in the form of apple cider vinegar, beverages containing caffeine, and cranberry juice to name a few.

A new autoinflammatory syndrome was recently discovered by researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions.

The syndrome was named as DIRA (deficiency of the interleukin-1 receptor antagonist) and can be termed as a rare genetic condition affecting children around the time of birth.

From News-Medical.Net:

The scientists identified nine patients from six families with DIRA in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, the Netherlands, Lebanon, and Puerto Rico. Those who were alive at the time of diagnosis – six in all – were treated with anakinra, a drug that is normally used for rheumatoid arthritis and is a synthetic form of human IL-1Ra. Although the patients were resistant to other medications such as steroids, most responded successfully and immediately to anakinra. “Our first patient had been unresponsive to several treatments, and his health care team had almost given up. But with anakinra, he was out of the hospital in 10 days and his symptoms resolved,” Dr. Goldbach-Mansky said.

Although the mutation that causes DIRA is rare, as many as 2.5 percent of the population of northwest Puerto Rico are carriers. Since DIRA is recessively inherited, these data suggest that it may be present in about 1 in 6,300 births in this population. Because the mutation was found in three independent Dutch families, newborn screening for DIRA in this population, as well as that of northwest Puerto Rico, may be warranted, Dr. Goldbach-Mansky said.

It was noted that children affected from this syndrome show a constellation of severe symptoms such as bone tissue swelling.

The combination of an ultrasound-guided technique with steroid injection is 95 percent effective to relieve a common and painful foot problem, plantar fasciitis.

This finding was reported by a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Luca M. Sconfienza, M.D., from Italy’s University of Genoa and lead author of the study, said that there is lack of a widely accepted therapy when first-line treatments fail to relieve the pain of plantar fasciitis.

From News-Medical.Net:

For this study, Dr. Sconfienza and colleagues used a new ultrasound-guided technique, along with steroid injection, on 44 patients with plantar fasciitis that was unresponsive to conservative treatments.

After injection of a small amount of anesthesia, the anesthetic needle is used to repeatedly puncture the site where the patient feels the pain. This technique is known as dry-needling. Dry-needling creates a small amount of local bleeding that helps to heal the fasciitis. Lastly, a steroid is injected around the fascia to eliminate the inflammation and pain. The technique is performed with ultrasound guidance to improve accuracy and to avoid injecting the steroids directly into the plantar fascia, which could result in rupture.

After the 15-minute procedure, symptoms disappeared for 42 of the study’s 44 patients (95 percent) within three weeks.

The most common cause of heel pain, plantar fasciitis, tends to affect approximately one million people on a yearly basis in the United States alone.

Accutane is nothing but a miracle drug when it comes to preventing the harmful effects of aging and reviving the skin texture. Read on!

Accutane, available in an oral form (10-mg, 20-mg and 40-mg soft gelatin capsules), is an exemplary product for inhibiting aging and attaining a blemish free skin.

Its action mechanism is all about working from the inside for clearing skin of any acne region besides preventing future acne breakouts along with reducing or smoothing the scars left by such breakouts of the past. In addition to all these benefits, Accutane is useful for reducing or eliminating the nodular or cystic acne problems for people of all ages.

Chemical Properties

The chemical name of Accutane is (2Z, 4E, 6E, 8E)-3, 7-dimethyl-9-(2, 6, 6-trimethylcyclohexen-1-yl) nona-2, 4, 6, 8-tetraenoic acid; the chemical formula of Accutane is C20H28O2.

Each tablet consists of butylated hydroxyanisole, edetate disodium, beeswax, hydrogenated vegetable oil, soybean oil, and hydrogenated soybean oil flakes.

Accutane capsules must be protected from direct sunlight, heat, moisture, pets, children, and unauthorized usage. In addition to that, they must be kept at a controlled room temperature of 59° to 86°F with excursions permitted up to 15° to 30°C.

Accutane Dose

The advised dose of Accutane is 0.5-1.0 mg per kg of body weight on a daily basis. This means that the recommended dose of Accutane for an individual weighing 60 kg will be 30-60 mg per day.

We hope that this educative blog on Accutane was helpful for you in more than just a way.

Scientists at the University of Bristol and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA have suggested that intermittent signaling by steroid hormones can affect the manner by which genes are expressed in rodents.

The finding is considered to offer considerable implications for understanding how steroids operate and open up novel avenues for new therapies.

From News-Medical.Net:

In this new study, the researchers demonstrate that ultradian hormone stimulation induces the pulsed expression of genes (known as gene pulsing) over the same period, both in cultured cells and in animal models. Initially, the researchers administered corticosterone, a naturally occurring glucocorticoid hormone in rodents, in a pulsed manner to cultured mouse cells and then observed that the levels of newly synthesized RNA from glucocorticoid receptor-regulated genes tracked precisely with the hormone  pulses.

The reported research results argue that gene pulsing regulated by glucocorticoid receptors is directly linked to varying levels of gene activity. Professor Stafford Lightman, head of the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology, at the University of Bristol, said: “We have previously shown that the hormone cortisol is released in pulses in man as well as rodents. The present results now show that this pattern of hormone release is critical for good health and provides a novel concept for new drug design.”

The findings were published online and appeared in the September 2009 issue of Nature Cell Biology.

When it comes to optimizing benefits of anabolic steroids at the end of a steroid cycle, Clomid is one name that is admired by one and all.

Clomid, which is also known as Clomiphene Citrate, is an effective antiestrogen when it comes to improving recovery of body’s natural testosterone production after a steroid cycle. In addition to that, Clomid is also admired for minimizing the potential risk of gynecomastia during a cycle employing aromatizable steroids.

In addition to these benefits, Clomid is useful for improving the level of blood cholesterol and acting as an effective agonist in bone tissue besides minimizing the adverse effect of exercise-induced damage of muscle tissue.

This orally administered, nonsteroidal, ovulatory stimulant has the chemical name of 2-[p-(2-chloro-1,2-diphenylvinyl)phenoxy] triethylamine citrate (1:1). Its molecular weight is 598.09 g/mol at the base and its molecular formula is C₂₆H₂₈ClNO • C₆H₈O₇.

The active ingredient of Clomid tablets is 50 mg clomiphene citrate USP and its inactive ingredients include corn starch, lactose, magnesium stearate, pregelatinized cornstarch, and sucrose.

Recommended Dose

The recommended dose of Clomid is 50 mg/day, with or without meals, for a period of five days at a stretch.

Possible Side Effects

When abused or a low-grade quality, Clomid can lead to possible side effects such as blurred vision, lights, floaters, waves, headache, vomiting, nausea, and depression.

Clomid tablets are required to be kept at a controlled room temperature 59-86°F (15-30°C).

We hope that this information on Clomid, the effective antiestrogen, was helpful to you in more than just a way.

A protein secreted from adipocytes, Adiponectin, has been found to be the metabolic link between obesity and both bone mineral density (BMD) and reduced susceptibility to fractures.

The finding was revealed during a study by researchers at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Toronto, Canada, which appeared in an issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

From News-Medical.Net:

Female mice overexpressing adiponectin had weaker vertebra at 8 weeks of age than control mice and this delay in bone development persisted through to the end of the study period, representing early adulthood. The weaker vertebra model compression fractures of the lumbar spine in humans, among the most common type of fragility fracture associated with low bone mass and osteoporosis. The strength of the femur neck, representing the hip, was also weaker in both females and males overexpressing adiponectin. Serum adiponectin levels were inversely correlated with femur bone mineral content, further emphasizing that a high level of adiponectin impedes bone development at not only the lumbar spine but also the hip. Whether or not the delay in bone development resolves in later life or is sustained and leads to an increased risk of fragility fracture, particularly during aging when bone loss rapidly occurs due to declining levels of sex steroids, requires further investigation.

The research team, Dr. Michael C. Archer, Earle W. McHenry Professor and Chair, Dr. Wendy E. Ward, Associate Professor, Dr. Kafi Ealey, Postdoctoral Fellow and predoctoral student Jovana Kaludjerovic, in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, evaluated whether or not the diponectin modulates bone development using transgenic mice that overexpress this protein.