The Side Effects of Anabolic Steroids - Use, Abuse, Disease, and Condition - Essay Example

The Side Effects of Anabolic Steroids: Use, Abuse, Disease & Condition. Anabolic steroids are made up of some performance- enhancement drugs. These drugs do the mimicking of the testosterone inside the body and, therefore, facilitate performance by enlarging the muscle cells. These drugs if used inappropriately or at high doses or without supervisor they may cause irrational and erratic behavior and a wide range of adverse effects. Performance-enhancing drugs are used by bodybuilders, and by people of different age, right from middle-school to college students and old athletes. Anabolic steroids increase the protein production hence creating building blocks for bones, muscle cells, and body tissues. The main, side effects of the anabolic steroids is the androgenic effect, and its effect in damaging the liver (Benjamin 3). Androgenic response increases the male features like secondary characteristics, which normally come, up due to androgenic steroids. Medical indications in this case are due to inadequate production of testosterone within the body. The liver damage on the other side is influenced by the direct effect of oral steroids that gives the liver a hard time to metabolize. For many years, wise physicians have come to the realization that many human diseases could be understood as pathophysiology or a disordered physiology. In medicine, pathophysiology is one of the branches dealing with the body disturbances that could have been caused by either prodromal symptoms or a disease. In most cases, a disease is triggered up by something. The body will then reacts with systemic, cellular, and molecular responses that would be the prevailing signs or symptoms of a disease. In this respect, good knowledge of the normal functions and structures, and how they become disordered, will lead to the understanding of the specific illness. This will also enable one to design an effective treatment for the disease. For instance, getting to know the pathophysiology of diseases like low testosterone mostly referred to as “low T”, and the liver disease, depends on the basic knowledge of the abuse of anabolic steroids in the body. This paper explores the pathophysiology of Low T and liver disease in humans. The paper analyzes the causes, and physiological changes, which occur in, the progression of the diseases. Low T is a disease that affects both women and men. In men, the disease may be caused by undescended testicles, or destruction of the scrotum. In a female, the disease is caused by ovary conditions. The treatment of low T in men is by use of a replacement testosterone therapy. The pathophisiology of low T disease does represent the failure of a number of complex metabolic functions (Benjamin 4). The symptoms and the rationale for treating low T disease are derived from the concepts of pathophysiology. Metabolism of testosterone is by the help of 5-alpha-reductase which converts it to DHT (dihydrotestosterone). The main effect of DHT is to act on the nucleus of the cells of the targeted tissue. DHT is also concerned with anabolic building of tissue, and the androgenic effects, for example, masculinising. Testosterone could also be metabolized using the aromatase to estrone and estradiol. In physiological conditions that are normal, aromatase will always play a role that is limited. Increased doses of AAS (androgenic anabolic steroids will increase the level of oestrogen produced hence leading to irreversed men feminizing effect. If one obtains the negative inhibition results of testosterone in hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis and the LH, GnRH, testosterone production, and FSH suppression; then the reduced sperm count, testicular atrophy, and mobility of results would be observed. In this respect infertility would occur within a short duration of time. In men, other effects that come up due to the hormonal suppression include oily skin, acne, lipido changes, scrotal pain, upper torso disproportion muscular development, testicular atrophy, importance, hairline, recession, infertility, higher pitch of voice, and irreversible gynaecomastia. In women, these effects include oily skin, acne, upper torso muscular development, lipido changes, and irregularities in the menstrual cycle. The irreversible muscular effects are male baldness, hirsutism, voice deepening, and hypertrophy clitoral. Some of the psychiatric effects include psychosis, aggression, depression, withdrawal, physical dependence, and anxiety. The hepatic effects of this disease are not related to the hormones. These effects are as a result of the chemical manipulation of the structure of testosterone. Some elevations that are transient and unpredictable in LFT are noticed in users of, steroids though, not of muscular origin but of liver origin. These elevations normally come about as a result of physical exercise that is strenuous and are, therefore, not associated with liver disease. Cardiovascular complication of this disease includes dyslipidaemia that has accelerated atherogenesis, fluid abnormities and electrolyte of chronic hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, cardiomyopathy, cerebrovascular accidents, myocardial ischaemia, increased aggregation, arrhythmias and thrombotic-erythropoiesis events. These effects may course premature deaths in patients with the disease. Production of testosterone is regulated by the hormone released from the brain. Pituitary and hypothalamus which are positioned in human brain produce signals which lead to release of testosterone. The testosterone, which circulates within the blood, is bounded to a carrier protein. Some of the causes of low T disease include the abuse of steroids which creates a problem at the pituitary or hypothalamus to produce the required amounts of FSH and LH which would stimulate the release of testosterone (Benjamin 5). Another problem occurs when the misuse of steroids cause the organs of the body which produce testosterone to function abnormally or not able to be stimulated by the brain. With all these the SHBG changes will account for the level of testosterone present to exhibit the effects. Whenever there is less testosterone in the fetus, the development of genitals could be affected. The scrotum and the penis would be poorly developed and would have a female genitalia appearance which would neither be female nor male (Harm 4). If the setting of low testosterone is in puberty, an individual will fail to have the maturation of sex. Such a patient fails to develop the deepening of voice, muscles mass development fails body growth fails, gynecomastia and the testes and the penis fails to enlarge. In adults, low testosterone causes a reduced sexual function. It also reduces the sexual desire, erectile dysfunction and infertility. Some men patients may experience the reduction of their muscle mass and reduced bone density. In female individuals, the patients experience irritation, hot flashes, sleep disturbances and decreased lipido. A patient may also lose mass of the muscle his or her bone density would reduce, and such a patient may lose her body hair. This, therefore, implies that, low levels of testosterone in infants would cause poor sexual development of organs. In puberty, it causes the failure in the development of the secondary sex characteristics. In adulthood, low testosterone causes erectile dysfunction, reduced muscle mass, reduced lipid and osteoporosis. Another side effect of the abuse of the anabolic steroids is its effect on the destruction of the liver. Metabolism of the oral anabolic steroids in the liver is always difficult. The cells of the liver are normally damaged during the breaking down of the oral components by the liver. Continuous use of anabolic steroids makes the liver to change its structure and reduces its ability to get rid of the body wastes. Use of anabolic steroids makes the liver to have openings of blood-filled pockets. This condition is referred to as peliosis hepatitis. Anabolic steroids will also lead to infectious hepatitis. This disease is due to the injection of the anabolic steroids. It affects the liver and is normally transmitted by needled that are dirty. In addition to this, anabolic steroids would also lead to growth of tumors in the liver. They promote some liver cells to grow into nodules that resemble tumors (Deny 2). Aromatisation is another effect of abuse of steroids. In this case anabolic steroids are converted into some female hormone that is referred to as estrogen. The liver will then deactivate the formed estrogen and the consumption of alcohol reduces the speed of this process thus causing the breast to develop in males. This is referred to as gynecomastia. For a patient, with Low testosterone despite understanding the pathophysiology of the disease he or she needs to understand the management skill of the disease. Infants need to have a regular screen examination so as to check the normal testes placement. During puberty parents and the health care givers need to check the development of the patient’s secondary sex characteristics. In adulthood, individuals with reduced lipido and erectile dysfunction need to find help of their condition. Awareness of these skills will prevent cases of emergency cases of low testosterone. When the symptoms lead to the diagnosis, the healthcare practitioner needs to find out the symptoms history, and a physical examination would be performed before the blood test in order to help assess the levels of testosterone within the body. This examination is entirely age dependent. Other pertinent precautions that need to be observed include analysis of blood tests to gauge the level of testosterone. The first treatment consideration of managing this disease is identifying the underlying cause and addressing the specific cause of the illness. Low T can be treated by supplementing the missing hormone with artificial replacements. A replacement therapy for testosterone involving intramuscular injection given twice a week can be used because it acts as a patch placed on the skin. Patients need to recognize the treatment of the hypothalamus or the pituitary glands. In women individuals, they are expected to the smaller doses of the gel or patches despite the reliability of these methods. Patients need to identify the testing and recording of low T disease. After being equipped with these skills, a low T patient also has to be made aware of the long-term effect of low T and how these problems can be avoided. These individuals need to update, and review their knowledge on testosterone because currently, better ways of treating low testosterone and research on the disease are going through a development. In some cases, a patient should to be taught on the way to do their own self test. Patients should also take their medications regularly, and timely so as to maintain their robust health. Prevention of this disease can be possible if an individual avoids the inappropriate usage of anabolic steroids. A patient needs to avoid high doses of the steroids should always follow the medical prescriptions of the anabolic steroids. Otherwise, the ability to treat this disease will depend on a patient’s recognition of the symptoms then seeking the medical attention. After the diagnosis of the cause of low testosterone, a replacement therapy would be done for the low testosterone. This will help in changing the related symptoms for the low levels. Work cited Benjamin, Wedro. Effects of Anabolic Steroids, 2009. Web 7th may 2012. http://www.medicinenet.com/low-testosterone. Harm, K uipers. Anabolic steroid: Side effects, 1998. Web 11th may 2012. http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/anabstereff/anabstereff.html/ Deny, Fletcher. Effect of the anabolic steroids on the liver, 2000. Web 11th May 2012. http://ezinearticles.com/ Read More