Posts Tagged ‘Steroid use’

According to a new study designed for evaluating whether androgenic anabolic steroids may be addictive in nature, hamsters exposed to the compounds noticed addictive behavior over a period of time.

The research that was conducted by the University of Southern California’s Keck School of medicine was released at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s (ACNP) annual conference.

From News.bio-medicine.org:

“Most people use anabolic steroids to enhance their physical performance, but they deny that steroids may be addictive,” noted lead researcher Ruth Wood, PhD, Professor of Cell and Neurobiology at USC. “Unlike other commonly abused drugs, the primary motivation for steroid users is not to get high, but rather to achieve enhanced athletic performance and increased muscle mass. The complex motivation for steroid use makes it difficult to determine the addictive properties of anabolic steroids in humans. Our goal was to create an experimental model of addiction where athletic performance and other reinforcing effects are irrelevant.”

Wood’s study is among the first to examine the potential for anabolic steroid addiction. The research was modeled after well-established methods used to study highly addictive drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. Hamsters were implanted with small cannulas for self-administration of commonly abused steroids into their brains. The animals then spent four hours per day in a chamber with access to two delivery mechanisms. When the hamster operated the active mechanism, he received 1 microgram of testosterone, or one of several commonly abused steroids: nandrolone, drostanolone, stanozolol, or oxymetholone.

It was suggested by the study that coaches and athletes must be aware of the addiction aspect besides other possible risks of using anabolic steroids.

The Cardinals’ hitting coach, Mark McGwire, remarked in the visiting dugout at Citi Field that he has moved on from the steroid era and does not want to answer any more questions about steroids or from where he got them during his illustrious career spanning 16 years. When asked, McGwire said he will not be judging Alex Rodriguez in his quest for 600 home runs.

McGwire was welcomed back into the Cardinals’ fold in downtown St. Louis during a fan fest.

From NYdailynews.com:

But that was apparently one of the last times McGwire would address his steroid use. Yesterday, when asked if a man named Curtis Wenzlaff provided him with steroids, McGwire responded that he had already “answered all those questions.” Wenzlaff was first identified by the Daily News in 2005, days before the congressional hearing, as the man who provided Big Mac with a powerful array of performance-enhancing drugs early in his career with Oakland. Two FBI sources confirmed the Wenzlaff information, which stemmed from the seminal FBI steroid investigation called “Operation Equine,” carried out in the late ’80s and early ’90s. McGwire’s name surfaced during Equine along with that of A’s teammate Jose Canseco, but the FBI was targeting dealers, not users.

McGwire socked 583 home runs in his career, including a then single-season record 70 in 1998. He admitted in January that his steroid use included the ‘98 season. For the past four years he’s been on the Hall of Fame ballot, McGwire has fallen well short of the 75% vote needed to be elected to Cooperstown. McGwire said that decision is “out of my control.”

It is worth remembering here that McGwire came clean about his long-time use of steroids in January during a televised interview with Bob Costas.

The use of anabolic steroids was found to be linked with criminal acts such as fraud and possession of illegal weapons as per a Swedish study. A fresh warning was issued by the study about the possible dangers of these muscle building drugs as use of steroids leads to increased aggression, criminal behavior, and violent outbursts.

It is worth noting here that this relationship has been on a high ever since availability of steroids was made easy on the Internet.

From Bio-Medicine.Org:

241 Swedes who tested positive for steroid use out of a sample of 1,440 tested for the drugs from 1995 and 2001 at a laboratory in Huddinge, Sweden were found to have a strong connection to some criminal acts but not others.

The steroid users were roughly twice as likely to have been found guilty of a weapons crime and 1-1/2 times as likely to have been found guilty of fraud.

Anabolic steroids are drugs that are related to male sex hormones which can be taken through injections or orally. Several athletes, bodybuilders and others, both male and female, use steroids without a prescription to build muscle bulk and strength to look better.

Some of the side effects of taking steroids include liver cancer, kidney disease and bad acne. In addition in men steroids have been found to shrink testicles, cause lower sperm count, raise prostate cancer risk, increase infertility and cause baldness. For women, they can cause facial hair growth, menstrual problems, male-pattern baldness and a deeper voice. In adolescents growth can be stunted.

Steroid abusers also show depression, extreme mood swings, delusions, impulsiveness, paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, and impaired judgment.

The study was published in journal Archives of General Psychiatry and the researchers were led by Dr. Fia Klotz of Uppsala University in Sweden.

According to scientists from the University of Michigan, a compound called benzodiazepine-423 (Bz-423) – a chemical cousin of the anti-anxiety drugs Valiumâ and Xanaxâ – is effective for suppressing cell growth in a psoriasis model.

This finding was disclosed in a study published online in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Currently, the best treatments for skin lesions associated with psoriasis are topical steroids, but the problem with those drugs is that they’re not selective for the disease-causing cells. They affect normal cells as well, and repeated use over time can lead to tissue destruction,” said Gary Glick, who is the Werner E. Bachmann Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and a professor of biological chemistry in the U-M Medical School. “There are also protein drugs approved for use in treating psoriasis, but those drugs are injected instead of applied topically, which makes them more costly, less convenient and more likely to cause side effects since they are delivered throughout the body.”

“What makes our compound particularly exciting is that it has the potential to be applied topically, and it shows very good selectivity for models of the disease-causing cells versus normal cells,” Glick said. “So we believe the problems associated with repeated topical steroid use could possibly be alleviated with compounds like this.”

Psoriasis is a disease in which cells multiply in an unchecked manner and therefore inhibiting cell growth is required for disease control.

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.

Canakinumab (ACZ885), a new interleukin-1 (IL-1)-beta blocking monoclonal antibody, has the ability to hold promise for indicating efficacy and toleration in children with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA), according to a new phase II study presented at PReS 2009, a joint congress with the 2009 Congress of the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Dr Nicolino Ruperto, Senior Scientist of Paediatric Rheumatology International Trials Organization, Istituto Di Ricovero a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) Children’s Hospital of Genova, Italy and study’s lead author, said that juvenile idiopathic arthritis is the common of all chronic inflammatory diseases of childhood and sJIA is the most severe subtype.

From Sciencedaily.com:

The observed time to relapse upon cessation of canakinumab therapy was variable, ranging from 1-12 weeks. The time to relapse was analysed using a frailty model with dose grouping – this included statistically significant baseline covariates such as CRP, WBC (white blood cell) count and steroid dose. The median time to relapse was 56 (95% CI: 32-100), 60 (38-95) and 90 (45-181) days for doses <3, 3, >3 mg/kg, with a 19% (95% CI: 6-41), 17% (6-34) and 7% (1-23) probability of relapse within one month, respectively.

Concurrent steroid use was tapered in 70% of responders. On average, the steroid dose was decreased by an average of 0.054 mg/kg per month in the first 5 months (95% CI: 0.013-0.121). Adverse events experienced by study participants were predominantly mild to moderate in severity, including infections and gastrointestinal disorders. Two serious adverse events (worsening nausea in a patient with a medical history of gastritis and EBV viral infection in another patient) relating to canakinumab, according to the investigator, were resolved during treatment.

Dr. Ruperto noted that canakinumab seems to have the ability to become an effective and fast-acting form of treatment method along with the benefit of having a promising safety profile.

If you have been left astonished by the recent surge in the demand, success, and popularity of anabolic steroids then you are not alone. This is simply because steroids offer unique advantages that are beyond human imagination, to say the least.

If you have a close look at the success stories of some of the most successful names in the world of professional sports, you will be amazed to know that most of them used steroids to attain the “distinctive slot”. We are not talking here just about bodybuilding, sporting events such as cycling, boxing, athletics, football, baseball, and basketball, and rugby have all been influenced by anabolic steroids.

This epidemic of steroid use in professional sports suggests that the use of steroids is done by almost one and all as the potential benefits of steroid use outweigh small risks associated with steroids. The so-called state-of-the-art steroid testing programs, which are followed by many professional sport bodies, are unable to keep a curb on steroid use and the result is obvious – more and more sportsmen are using anabolic steroids than ever.

Since steroids promote enhancements in the levels of stamina, power, performance, flexibility, muscle gains, and body strength to name a few, sportsmen are getting influenced to use them for delivering dramatic on-field performance and stay closer to name, fame, money, and recognition.

In short, there is no denying the fact that steroids are ruling today’s world and this is one truth evident from the growing popularity of steroids in today’s times.

The benefits of steroids have always impressed mankind. However, some members of the general public and medical fraternity are keen to focus on the negative aspects associated with steroid use despite the fact that eminent scientists have already given a nod to steroid use for varying purposes.

In the world of health and fitness, anabolic steroids are exceptional products helping one and all to realize long-cherished dreams without any hassles.

Let us have a close look at some advantage of steroids to gain a clear and complete insight.

Advantages of Steroids:

Steroids offer multiple and varying benefits to their users. These benefits may range from improvements in the terms of stamina, body strength, muscle mass, performance, aggression, and ability to handle intense workouts. In addition to that, steroid use also leads to benefits such as reductions in terms of fatigue, muscle injury, and LDL (bad) cholesterol.

Bodybuilders and athletes benefit from steroids in so many ways. Steroids promote the process of protein synthesis and a sense of well-being. They help in delivering dramatic on-field performances on a continuing basis besides ensuring enhancements in terms of muscle mass and function.

In the world of medicines, anabolic steroids are used for treating severe health complications such as cancer, asthma, sexual dysfunction, paralysis, Bell’s palsy, and muscle deteriorating diseases.

With all these and many more benefits, steroids are miracle drugs that come with no side effects unless of a low-grade quality or abused. When used as per medical advice, steroids can only offer positive gains without the probability of any side effect. These are just some of the reasons why the benefits of steroids are recommended by one and all.

The use of anabolic steroids has always been a debated issue. While anti-doping officials are finding new ways to prevent steroid use, diuretics such as Aldactone are exceptional products for concealing the success secret.

Aldactone, which is also known as Spironolactone, is a diuretic that helps in hiding or masking the presence of anabolic steroids in the human body. It is used by bodybuilders, strength athletes, and other sportsmen to deliver dramatic on-field performances and yet remaining safe from doping tests.

The chemical structure of Aldactone is 17-hydroxy-7alpha-mercapto-3-oxo-17alpha- pregn-4-ene-21-carboxylic acid gamma-lactone acetate. It has the molecular weight of 416.5744 g/mol at base.

Action Mechanism

Aldactone helps in keeping a close check on the production of aldosterone besides having a minimizing effect on fluid retention. This means that it promotes enhanced muscle definition besides allowing its users to get a lean, muscular appearance.

In addition to that, Aldactone inhibits androgenic side effects from occurrence after the end of a steroid cycle. In sporting events such as boxing where weight classes are considered important, Aldactone is highly useful as it allows the users to compete in a weight category without compromising on muscle tissue in order to lose fat and body weight.

Recommended Dose

The recommended dose of Aldactone is 75-150 mg per day, with or without meals. For optimizing results, it can be taken alongside anti-estrogens such as Nolvadex or Clomid.

We hope that this piece of information on Aldactone, the diuretic, was helpful to you in more than just a way.