Steroid

What actually is Steroid?

Steroids are fat soluble (lipid) organic compounds that occur naturally throughout the plant and animal kingdom and play many imported functional roles. All steroids are characterized by a fouring structural configuration. Steroids are quite diverse and include the sterols (such as cholesterol) of vertebrates, bile acids from the liver, all sex hormones, adrenocortical hormones (corticosteroids), toad poisons and products of the digitals plant used to treat heart disease. Hormonal steroids are synthesized from characterized from cholesterol in the body. The bio synthetic mechanisms are similar in all steroid secreting tissue (adrenal cortex, testis, ovary, and placenta).

Whereas sex hormones are necessary for many aspects of reproduction and sexual function, the adrenocortical hormones, secreted by the adrenal cortex, are essential to life itself. There re two classes of corticosteroids. The glucocorticoids such as cortisone affect primarily carbonydrate and protein metabolism. They have limited use in the treatment of many immunologic and allergic diseases, such as arthritis. The mineralocorticoids such as aidosterone regulate principally salt and water balance. Because of the great theraheutic value of corticosteroids, many synthetic steroids have been produced, some more potent than the natural hormones. Synthetic steroids include antiinflammatory drugs, oral contraceptives, and a synthetic adrenal steroid used to treat Addison's Disease.

Anabolic steroids are derived from the sex hormone testosterone. Developed in the 1930s, they came to public notice following World War II, when they were used to restore body weight in concentration camp survivors. They were later promoted for use against may conditions, but research did not support most such claims, remaining recognized uses include the treatment of certain anemias and breast cancers. Since the early 1950s the drugs have also come to be widely employed by athletes in the hope of enhancing performance, despite efforts to discourage or ban the practice. Short term and apparently reversible side effect include acne, balding, reduced sex drive, increase irritability, and (in women) masculinization. Long-term effects such as liver tumors and changes in liver function, also apparently reversible, are known and some athlete death from steroids have been reported. In children the drugs can cause long bones to fuse prematurely, and can induce premature puberty.