Steroids

Anabolic steroids are not mysterious wonder drugs; they are simply man-made versions of the primary male sex hormone, testosterone.

Hormones are one of the body's major regulatory mechanisms. Both men and women have natural hormones that serve as the controllers of the almost infinite number of chemical reactions that take place within our bodies. Hormones actively "turn on" or "turn off" a gene so as to alter the supply of cell components or influence the rate of chemical processes in the body. For example, hormones can tell muscle cells to produce specific proteins from raw materials within the body so that muscle tissue mass will increase. Hormones also can activate genes in skin cells to influence the growth of facial hair. Hormones regulate the supply of raw materials within the cells and often work directly to speed up or slow down certain biochemical reaction rates.

Two organs in the brain, the pituitary and the hypothalamus, control many hormonal functions. The thyroid gland and the pancreas also produce hormones. The group of hormones that are produced by the adrenal gland and ovaries in women, and the adrenal gland and testes in men, consist of a special type of lipid (fat) called steroids, which comes from a Greek word that means solid. The human body is capable of producing more than 600 different types of steroids, including testosterone, and a number of them exhibit male hormone-like activities. This family of compounds is known as androgens. The word androgen is derived from the Greek roots andro (meaning male) and gen (meaning to produce) and refers to male sex hormones.

The natural supply of testosterone in adult males is produced by the Leydig cells located within the testes. (Women and young boys do have a small amount of testosterone in their bodies that is produced by the adrenal gland.) Very little testosterone is stored within the body so that production must be more or less continuous. Testosterone is responsible for both the androgenic (masculinizing) and anabolic (tissue-building) effects that take place during puberty and continue in adulthood. It is the significant increase in the production of testosterone in a young male that precipitates puberty.

Anabolic steroids are primarily a consequence of research to develop drugs that would separate the tissue-building capability of testosterone from its masculinizing properties. This separation has never been fully achieved. Consequently, the proper name for this class of hormones is anabolic-androgenic steroids, although they are usually referred to simply as anabolic steroids or steroids.

Don't confuse anabolic steroids with corticosteroids such as prednisone or cortisone. Corticosteriods are hormones produced by the adrenal glands, and their biological properties are quite different from those of anabolic steroids. Corticosteroids like prednisone or cortisone are potent anti-inflammatory drugs used in medicine to treat conditions such as asthma and muscle strains and sprains. Their effect is catabolism (protein metabolism or breakdown) rather than anabolism (tissue protein building).

How steroids were developed

The search for the source of human strength is ancient. For hundreds of years before the word hormone came into the language, strength and power were linked with male sex organs. Primitive people commonly ate animal organs, sometimes even those of humans, in the belief that they could improve their strength, courage, or sexual function. As early as 140 BC, a healer in India advocated eating testicle tissue as a cure for impotence.

The practice of human castration, which probably originated about 2000 BC in Babylon, provided evidence that loss of the testicles meant that males lost not only their fertility, but also their strength, their power, and their aggressiveness. Animal castration provided similar evidence. Even though Aristotle (300 BC) knew nothing about the secretion of sex hormones, he still was able to clearly describe the effect of castration on a bird.

In 1889, a French physician named Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard performed a series of experiments in which he injected extracts made from animal testes into dogs and even himself. He reported an improvement in general health, muscular strength, appetite, regulation of the intestinal tract, and mental faculties. This experiment was not scientifically controlled, and today his results have been attributed to the placebo effect. However, his work stimulated other researchers to follow in his footsteps. In the continuing quest for youth and vigor, injections of animal testicle extracts and even the surgical implantation of monkey testicles became very popular in mainstream medicine until the early 1930s. Thereafter, the practice dwindled and died out as a result of the work of responsible scientists who debunked these claims of rejuvenation.

Most scientists of the late 1700s and early 1800s believed that the nervous system was the mediator of the changes that occurred after castration. Then in 1849, a German scientist named Berthold did a simple but elegant experiment with six roosters. He showed that the changes in the combs and wattles that occurred when roosters were castrated could be prevented if the removed testes were transplanted into the bird's abdominal cavity. This experiment made it clear that the active masculinizing substance was produced in the bloodstream and did not involve the central nervous system.

A burst of research activity that began in the 1920s on hormones and the endocrine system, and on male hormones specifically, led to an important series of observations about how hormonal control occurs, what it does, and which hormones are responsible for specific functions. By 1935, testosterone had been isolated, its chemical structure identified, and the basic nature of its anabolic and androgenic effects had been recognized.

The next major figure in hormonal research was the man most experts consider the father of anabolic steroids, Dr. Charles Kochakian. In the early 1930s, Dr. Kochakian showed that a hormone-like extract from male urine stimulated a strong positive nitrogen balance in castrated dogs. This finding was important because positive nitrogen balance indicates the synthesis of new tissue (proteins) in dogs and in humans. Thus, the anabolic or tissue-building properties of testosterone were established. A subsequent series of studies in rats showed similar results, and again, the positive nitrogen balance was associated with an increase in nonfat body weight.

Once researchers discovered that testosterone stimulates the protein-synthesizing or tissue-building process, it was immediately clear that there could be important medical applications if the tissue-building properties could be isolated. Throughout the 1940s, scientists grappled with the problem of getting the tissue-building effects of testosterone without also getting the masculinizing effects. The notion of a drug that could stimulate the development of new tissue was extremely attractive during World War II because it could aid in wound healing and perhaps save lives. Thus, the project took on new significance.

Dr. Kochakian soon became concerned about possible misuse of anabolic steroids, and he has warned that a complete split of the hormonal properties is not possible. "There is no such thing as a pure anabolic steroid," he has written. "All of the modified steroids still retain sufficient virilizing (masculinizing) activity to make them objectionable as therapeutic agents, especially in children and women."

While experiments to find a testosterone preparation that would stimulate tissue-building continued, other researchers worked to alter the chemical structure of testosterone. The addition of esters, which are formed from an alcohol and an acid when water is removed, was one method used to chemically alter the testosterone molecule. Some of these testosterone esters proved to be useful for treating protein deficiency in both humans and in horses. Almost 60 years later, these same testosterone esters are one of the chief drugs that athletes use.

Psychological effects

So much attention was given to the serious physical health consequences of anabolic steroid use that it was some time before researchers realized that the psychological and behavioral effects might be equally important. Anabolic steroids were used from the late 1930s until the mid-1980s as an accepted and seemingly successful treatment for mood and mental disorders, including psychosis and depression. The psychological effects of giving therapeutic dosages of anabolic steroids in clinical settings include an increase in mental alertness, mood elevation, improvements in memory and concentration, and reduction of fatigue sensations.

Other research has shown that testosterone has a significant effect on both the development and function of the nervous system. It appears that the effect of testosterone/anabolic steroids on brain function results in an elevation of norepinephrine (nature's version of adrenaline) levels in the brain. Anabolic steroids also have been shown to elicit changes in brain activity similar to those seen with amphetamines and tricyclic antidepressants.

The relationship between natural testosterone levels and dominance and aggressive behavior in various species of animals is well known. Of course, as we move up the evolutionary scale, social learning plays a significantly greater role in behavior. Although the relationship between testosterone and aggression is quite pronounced in mice and rats, the association is somewhat less consistent in monkeys, apes, and especially man. Nevertheless, a number of studies have looked at naturally occurring testosterone levels in men, and many, but not all, have shown an association between elevated testosterone levels and increases in both subjectively perceived aggressive behavior and observed aggressive behavior.

Although most scientists apparently agree that anabolic steroids, especially at high doses, seem to increase aggressiveness, not all studies reached this conclusion. Although three prospective, blinded studies documenting aggression or adverse overt behavior resulting from steroid use have been reported, two recent clinical trials, in which fairly substantial doses of steroids were administered to volunteers over a period of weeks, didn't detect any widespread demonstrable sexual or psychological effects.

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