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Anabolic information
What is an anabolic steroid?
Ok so you have probably heard about anabolic steroids in the media etc and all about how bad they are etc.. or someone claiming that it turns athletes superhuman. These sorts of claims are by people who do not know much about the topic, let alone what an anabolic steroid is. Its not just professional athletes that use steroids in fact they are the minority, around 75% of steroid users are not competing athletes, it used to be that steroids were only used by athletes and professional bodybuilders however now ere days the average joe wanting bigger arms to impress the ladies are using them. Its these sorts of idiots that do not know what they are doing and give the usage of steroids a bad name.
Anabolic steroids -- or more precisely, anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) -- are the synthetic derivatives of the naturally occurring male anabolic hormone testosterone. Both anabolic and androgenic have origins from the Greek: anabolic, meaning "to build," and androgenic, meaning "masculinizing." Testosterone's natural androgenic effects trigger the maturing of the male reproductive system in puberty, including the growth of body hair and the deepening of the voice. The hormone's anabolic effect helps the body retain dietary protein, which aids in the development of muscles.
After searching the internet I have also come across the following dictionary definitions of the word ‘anabolic steroid'.
anabolic steroid
-noun
a synthetic derivative of testosterone, sometimes used by athletes to help increase weight and strength. Dictionary.com
anabolic steroid
n. A group of synthetic hormones that promote the storage of protein and the growth of tissue, sometimes used by athletes to increase muscle size and strength.
American hertitage dictionary
anabolic steroid
n. A group of synthetic hormones that promote the storage of protein and the growth of tissue.
Stedmans medical dictionary
So you now have an idea of what an anabolic steroid actually is? But remember not all steroids are actually anabolic. I have included the definition of steroid as well for you.
Steroid
Any of numerous naturally occurring or synthetic fat-soluble organic compounds having as a basis 17 carbon atoms arranged in four rings and including the sterols and bile acids, adrenocortical and sex hormones, certain natural drugs such as digitalis compounds, and the precursors of certain vitamins. Also called steroid hormone.
History of anabolic steroids
‘Performance enhancing substances have been used for thousands of years in traditional medicine by societies around the world, with the aim of promoting vitality and strength. In particular, the use of steroid hormones pre-dates their identification and isolation: medical use of testicle extract began in the late 19th century, and its effects on strength were also studied then. In 1889, the 72-year-old British neurologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard injected himself with an extract of dog and guinea pig testicles, and reported at a scientific meeting that these injections had led to a variety of beneficial effects.
The development of modern pharmaceutical anabolic steroids can be traced back to 1931 when Adolf Butenandt, a chemist in Marburg, obtained 15 milligrams of the male hormone androstenone from tens of thousands of liters of urine. This hormone was synthesized in 1934 by Leopold Ruzicka, a chemist in Zurich. It was already known that the testes contained a more
powerful androgen than androstenone, and three groups of scientists, funded by competing pharmaceutical companies in The Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, raced to isolate it.
This testicular hormone was first identified by Karoly Gyula David, E. Dingemanse, J. Freud and Ernst Laqueur in a May 1935 paper "On Crystalline Male Hormone from Testicles (Testosterone). They named the hormone testosterone, from the stems of testicle and sterol, and the suffix of ketone. The chemical synthesis of testosterone was achieved in August that year, when Butenandt and G. Hanisch published a paper describing "A Method for Preparing Testosterone from Cholesterol. Only a week later, the third group, Ruzicka and A. Wettstein, announced a patent application in a paper "On the Artificial Preparation of the Testicular Hormone Testosterone (Androsten-3-one-17-ol). Ruzicka and Butenandt were offered the 1939 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work, but the Nazi government forced Butenandt to decline the honor.
Clinical trials on humans, involving either oral doses of methyl testosterone or injections of testosterone propionate, began as early as 1937. Testosterone propionate is mentioned in a letter to the editor of Strength and Health magazine in 1938; this is the earliest known reference to an anabolic steroid in a U.S. weightlifting or bodybuilding magazine.
During the Second World War, German scientists synthesized other anabolic steroids, and experimented on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war in an attempt to treat chronic wasting. They also experimented on German soldiers, hoping to increase their aggression. Adolf Hitler himself, according to his physician, was injected with testosterone derivatives to treat various ailments. The development of muscle-building properties of testosterone was pursued in the 1940s, in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Bloc countries such as East Germany, where steroid programs were used to enhance the performance of Olympic and amateur weight lifters. In response to the success of Russian weightlifters, the U.S. Olypmic Team physician worked with synthetic chemists to develop an anabolic steroid for American weightlifters, resulting in the production of methandrostenolone (Dianabol). Dianabol was approved for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration in 1958.
From the 1950s until the 1980s, there were doubts that anabolic steroids produced anything more than a placebo effect. In a 1972 study, participants were informed they would receive injections of anabolic steroids on a daily basis, but instead had actually been given a placebo. They reportedly could not tell the difference, and the perceived performance enhancement was similar to that of subjects taking the real anabolic compounds. According to Geraline Lin, a researcher for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, these results remained unchallenged for 18 years, even though the study used inconsistent controls and insignificant doses. In a 2001 study, the effects of high doses of anabolic steroids were examined, by injecting variable doses (up to 600 mg/week) of testosterone enanthate into muscle tissue for 20 weeks. The results showed a clear increase in muscle mass and decrease in fat mass associated with the testosterone doses. ‘Taken from wikpedia free encyclopaedia
The effects of anabolic steroids on the body
As the word Anabolic and Androgenic Steroids (AAS) suggests, you can expect effects from both in many cases. Some of these are outlined below:
Anbolic Effects
Increased protein synthesis from amino acids
Increased production of red blood cells from bone marrow stimulation
Increase in appetite
Androgenic Effects
Oil gland stimulation, can cause acne
Increase in androgen sensitive hair ie pubic, chest etc..
Increased libido (sex drive)
Above are just a few of the effects. Through a combination of these effects, anabolic steroids stimulate the formation of muscles and hence cause an increase in the size of muscle fibers, leading to increased muscle mass and strength. This increase in muscle mass is mostly due to larger skeletal muscles, and is caused by both increased production of muscle proteins as well as a decline in the breakdown rate of these proteins. A high testosterone dose also decreases the amount of fat in muscle, while increasing protein content. Steroids also decrease overall fat.
The effect of AAS on muscle mass comes from two main things. The first is the direct increase in protein production (muscle is made from proteins). And the second being the reduction of recovery time between workouts and sets due to the blocking of the stress hormone cortisol on muscle tissue. Anabolic steroids also affect the number of cells that develop into fat-storage cells, by favouring cellular differentiation into muscle cells instead.
‘The main way in which steroid hormones interact with cells is by binding to proteins called steroid receptors. When steroids bind to these receptors, the proteins move into the cell nucleus and either alter the expression of genes or activate processes that send signals to other parts of the cell.
In the case of anabolic steroids, the receptors involved are called the androgen receptors. The mechanisms of action differ depending on the specific anabolic steroid. Different types of anabolic steroids bind to the androgen receptor with different affinities, depending on their chemical structure. Anabolic steroids such as methandrostenolone bind weakly to this receptor and instead directly affect protein synthesis or glycogenolysis. On the other hand, steroids such as oxandrolone bind tightly to the receptor and act mostly on gene expression.’
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