Steroids Blog

Patients with vestibular neuritis experience nausea and vomiting caused by viral infection of the vestibular nerve. This causes dizziness and imbalance but it won’t result to deafness.

A study revealed that corticosteroids such as methylprednisolone help in the recovery of patients with vestibular neuritis.

From Bio-Medicine:

Vestibular neuritis causes dizziness due to a viral infection of the vestibular nerve.

Researchers conducted a study to see if a steroid drug, antiviral agent, or a combination of the two could improve the outcome of patients with vestibular neuritis. For the study, 141 patients who were diagnosed with vestibular neuritis were randomly assigned to one of the treatment groups. The treatment groups included the corticosteroid group (that received methylprednisolone, also known as Medrol), the antiviral agent group (that received valacyclovir, also known as Valtrex), a group that received both, and a group that received placebo.

Researchers found that 62 percent of the patients on the steroid improved compared to 39 percent in the placebo group, 36 percent in the antiviral group and 59 percent in the combination group. Researchers say the antiviral drug clearly did not improve the outcome in patients with vestibular neuritis despite the assumed viral cause. In fact, the steroid-alone group had better outcomes than the steroid-antiviral combination group.

The study involved 141 patients of vestibular neuritis who were divided into several groups. One group was given methylprednisolone, while the other group was administered with antiviral agent. The rest of the patients were given with placebo and combination of antiviral and steroid treatments. The researchers made two follow-ups on the patients after the treatment. One was after the treatment and the next was 12 months after.

The study which included 141 patients revealed that 62% who were treated with methylprednisolone showed improvement in their condition. The researchers are considering that steroids may be of great help in tre ating vestibular neuritis.

Polk County Police arrested a couple who claimed to be the biggest seizure of steroids in the area. The officers confiscated an estimated $200,000 in illegal steroids and a variety of weapons. The couple, Richard and Sandra Thomas is now facing multiple charges on steroids: 10 counts of possession of anabolic steroids with intention to sell and deliver; one count of possession of a firearm in commission of a felony; 10 counts importation of anabolic steroids into state of Florida; one count of maintaining a residence for selling drugs.

From TBO.com:

Cops say they have plenty of evidence that Richard Thomas and his wife Sandra were big-time steroid dealers. At a Tuesday night press conference announcing the arrest of the pair, Polk County Sheriff’s officials were surrounded by thousands of doses of anabolic steroids.

What investigators aren’t sure of is whether Richard Thomas, 35, is telling the truth when he says he is the biggest steroid provider in Central Florida and that he sold mostly to professional athletes, including those on the Washington Capitals hockey team and Washington Nationals baseball team.

Both Thomases were arrested Tuesday after a tip that originated from the Philadelphia office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At a 10 p.m. press conference in Lakeland, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said when the pair were arrested, detectives seized an estimated $200,000 in illegal steroids.

Richard and Sandra Thomas face a litany of identical charges: 10 counts of possession of anabolic steroids with intention to sell and deliver; one count of possession of a firearm in commission of a felony; 10 counts importation of anabolic steroids into state of Florida; one count of maintaining a residence for selling drugs.

According to police investigators, Richard Thomas claimed that he sold anabolic steroids to most professional athletes including Washington Capitals hockey team and Washington Nationals baseball team.

Over eating is not the only cause of obesity. According to studies, too much steroids in the body caused by Cushing’s syndrome may lead to excess gain weight. When the adrenal glands produce too much steroid hormone cortisol, it accumulates fats in various parts of the body.

Aside from Cushing’s syndrome, hypothyroidism and depression are also culprits of obesity. Hypothyroidism slows down the body’s metabolism, while depression causes a person to overeat in order to release his emotions and frustrations.

From Web MD:

Usually obesity is the result of overeating, but in a small percentage of cases excess weight gain is a symptom of another disease.

Medical causes of obesity can include:

• Hypothyroidism. This is a condition where the thyroid gland, located in the neck, produces too little thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone regulates our metabolism. So too little hormone slows the metabolism and often causes weight gain. If your doctor suspects thyroid disease as a cause of your obesity, he or she may perform blood tests to check your hormone levels.

• Cushing’s syndrome. This condition results when the adrenal glands (located on top of each kidney) produce an excess amount of a steroid hormone called cortisol. This leads to a build-up of fat in characteristic sites such as the face, upper back, and abdomen.

• Depression. Some people with depression overeat, which can lead to obesity.

There are also certain inherited conditions and other diseases of the brain that can cause excess weight gain.

Certain medications, notably steroids, some antidepressants, and high blood pressure drugs, and seizure medications can also cause increased body weight.

Some medications including steroids, antidepressants and high blood pressure medicines can also trigger weight gain. Steroids, specifically promote increased body weight because some steroids convert into estrogen which allows water and fluid retention in between the muscles.

Boys who have been affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy can now have a sigh of relief as per a recently concluded study. The study revealed that a daily intake of steroids can help them walk on their own for a longer period of time along with reducing the risks of scoliosis.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare ailment occurs in one out of 3500 boys, and restricts the walking ability of boys to a considerable extent.

From Bio-Medicine.Org:

For the study, researchers reviewed records of 143 boys seen at the Ohio State University Muscular Dystrophy Clinic in Columbus. Of the group, 75 had been treated with corticosteroids for an average of eight years and the rest of the boys had never been treated or had received a brief dose of steroids.

The study found boys who were treated with daily steroids walked by themselves 3.3 years longer than the untreated boys and had a lower rate of scoliosis, 31 percent compared to 91 percent.

“Previous studies have shown steroids improve strength and function in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but this is the first study to show the long-term impact and how treated boys are able to walk longer on their own,” said study author Wendy King, PT, with the Department of Neurology at Ohio State University Medical Center, and member of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study is the first of its kind to demonstrate the long-term impact of steroids for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This study is expected to give a new hope to all those male patients who were almost waging a lost battle against Muscular dystrophy.

Plaque psoriasis is effectively controlled by four weeks of a steroid spray followed by eight weeks of treatment with a calcitriol-based ointment. This was the result of the experiment conducted by Dr. Mark Lebwohl of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

From WebMD:

Three out of four patients with plaque psoriasis had a least a one-grade improvement in disease severity after 12 weeks of treatment with sequential topical therapy, according to interim data from an open-label study.

Four weeks of a steroid spray followed by eight weeks of treatment with a calcitriol-based ointment proved effective for achieving and maintaining disease control, Mark Lebwohl, M.D., of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, reported at the American Academy of Dermatology meeting.

“We haven’t had a vitamin D ointment since calcipotriene was taken off the market,” said Dr. Lebwohl. “The calcitriol ointment we used in this study is now available in the U.S., and these results show that it can be used effectively with clobetasol spray to control psoriasis disease activity.”

Patients began treatment with clobetasol spray twice a day for two weeks. If overall disease severity was clear at that point, the patient was withdrawn. If not, clobetasol treatment continued for another two weeks.

Patients with more severe disease after four weeks on clobetasol spray withdrew from the study.

After four weeks of treatment with calcitriol ointment, patients who had severe disease or whose disease severity had returned to baseline withdrew from the study.

The primary endpoint was improvement in overall disease severity by at least one grade after 12 weeks. By that criterion, 73.9% of patients had successful treatment, Dr. Lebwohl said.

After 12 weeks treatment of steroid spray and calcitriol-based ointment, Dr. Lebwoh found out that 73.9% of the patients with severe psoriasis had developed with at least one-grade improvement in disease severity.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease in which the body’s immune system attacks and destroys healthy joint tissue. The hands and feet are generally affected, and as the disease progresses it can cause pain, swelling, deformity and disability.

People suffering from the rheumatoid arthritis were given steroid treatment, which can inhibit joint damage, if used in the early stage of rheumatoid arthritis. They showed significant development and showed fast relief in pain. The steroids used in the treatment are glucocorticoids and it also includes the well-known anti-inflammatory prednisone.

From BIO-MEDICINE:

Low doses of steroids can inhibit joint damage when used in the early phase of rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new review of evidence.

The steroids studied in the review are known as glucocorticoids and include the well-known anti-inflammatory prednisone. This medication is often prescribed in the first few months after diagnosis to relieve the discomfort of RA until slower-acting drugs begin protecting the joints.

The research was conducted by the scientists, which included 15 studies including 1,414 patients. Low doses of glucocorticoid pills along with disease-modifying drugs were given for one or two years. There was a good sign of healing and the joint was no longer getting ruptured as seen by periodic X-rays. Quality evidence supports medication of combining the pills with standard medications in the first two years after diagnosis.

The report as showed by the sources concludes that if people are put on the lowest possible dose of steroids patients can get relief from the symptoms as soon as possible. This also showed that glucocorticoid pills are really effective in treatment of the rheumatoid arthritis.

As per a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center Scientists, steroids in conjunction with antibiotics can help pneumonia patients to recover in a quicker way than those recovering with antibiotics alone.

This study which was headed by Dr. Robert Hardy, Study’s Senior Author & Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, suggested that usage of steroids can be done with antibiotics to treat inflammation in the lungs of a pneumonia patient.

From News-medical.net:

Adding corticosteroids to traditional antimicrobial therapy might help people with pneumonia recover more quickly than with antibiotics alone, UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have found.

Unlike the anabolic steroids used to bulk up muscle, corticosteroids are often used to treat inflammation related to infectious diseases, such as bacterial meningitis. Used against other infectious diseases, however, steroid therapy has been shown to be ineffective or even harmful.

In a study available online and in a future issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, researchers at UT Southwestern show that mice infected with a type of severe bacterial pneumonia and subsequently treated with steroids and antibiotics recovered faster and had far less inflammation in their lungs than mice treated with antibiotics alone.

The study also suggested that the combination of antibiotics and steroids is an effective therapy for pneumonia patient during an attack of asthma (M pneumoniae infection). It was also remarked in the study that while usage of antibiotics is a good option to kill the bug, steroids can prove to be beneficial for treating inflammation in the lungs.

The findings of this study were supported by the National Institutes of Health.

According to the study headed by Dr. Ronald Wapner, corticosteroids called betamethasone which helps reduce neonatal mortality may also produce potential harm to babies. This type of corticosteroids given to women who are at risk of having premature delivery to stimulate the lungs development of their babies, is found to cause cerebral palsy among babies who are given multiple courses.

From ScienceDaily:

Repeated courses of a drug that is used to improve the survival of unborn premature babies also may increase the risk of cerebral palsy in those children, according to results from a multi-center study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and led by Ronald Wapner, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Columbia University Medical Center and attending obstetrician and gynecologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia.

The drug – a corticosteroid called betamethasone – is given to women at risk of premature delivery to hasten the development of their baby’s lungs. The study, performed by members of the NIH-sponsored Maternal-Fetal Medicine Network followed a total of 556 infants at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and 12 other sites around the country, and found that by ages two to three, the two groups of children were physically and neurologically identical, except that six out of 248 children who received multiple courses of corticosteroids had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, compared to only 1 out of 238 children in the placebo group. The mothers of all six children with cerebral palsy in the corticosteroid group had received four or more courses of the drug.

The study conducted by members of the NIH-sponsored Maternal-Fetal Medicine Network at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital showed that that six out of 248 babies age two to three who received multiple courses of corticosteroids had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, compared to only 1 out of 238 children treated with placebo.

In an experiment conducted by Dr. Luca M. Sconfienza, of the University of Genoa, he claimed that dry-needling and steroids can treat plantar fasciitis.

He said that the procedure is done by making a small quantity of local bleeding through the use of dry-needling method. Then a steroid will be injected into the perifascial soft tissue which helps reduce inflammation.

From Medpage today:

For patients with plantar fasciitis, a notoriously difficult condition to treat, an Italian team has come up with a novel approach that uses dry-needling combined with a steroid injection, researchers said here.

Dry needling creates a small amount of local bleeding that helps to heal the fascia, and the accompanying steroid injected into the perifascial soft tissue, rather than directly into the fascia, reduces inflammation, Luca M. Sconfienza, M.D., of the University of Genoa, said at the Radiological Society of North America meeting.

“It’s a very good [method] because we allow nature to work for us,” Dr. Sconfienza said. When bleeding is induced around the fascia, platelets respond, helping the tissue to heal spontaneously.

No widely accepted therapy for the disease has been established, the researchers said. Shockwaves, which send sound waves through the heel, is expensive and painful, Dr. Sconfienza said, and its long-term efficacy has not been established.

In the study the team of Dr. Luca Sconfienza, tested the method among 44 patients ages 35 to 80 who were unresponsive to previous therapy. Each patient was given local anesthesia before the needling method was performed on the insertional portion of the plantar fascia and the periosteum to induce hyperemia. Then when the needle was pulled back into the perifascial soft tissues and injected 1 mL of triamcinolone acetonide 40 mg/mL to reduce inflammation.

About three weeks after the process, 39 had a complete response, while only two did not respond to therapy.

Roger Clemens had decided to speak out in public to once again deny the issue on steroid use. He claimed that his former trainer Brian McNamee never administered HGH or steroids on him. Clemens also told the media that he never considered using steroids since their family has a history of heart problems.

In the midst of the steroid controversy, Clemens filed a defamation case against former trainer Brian McNamee who told baseball investigator George Mitchell he had injected Clemens with steroids.

From RGJ.com:

Roger Clemens broke his silence Tuesday, again denying that former personal trainer Brian McNamee injected him with performance-enhancing drugs in his first public comments in more than a year.

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner was interviewed by phone on ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning.” He said he chose to speak out Tuesday because it was the official release date of a book about his alleged drug use.

“He’s never injected me with HGH or steroids,” Clemens said of McNamee, who told baseball investigator George Mitchell he had injected Clemens with drugs.

“American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime,” by four New York Daily News reporters, recaps previous reports in the newspaper.

Clemens said he had given a DNA sample to federal investigators but that syringes provided by McNamee would not link him to performance-enhancing drug use.

Clemens is under investigation by a federal grand jury in Washington that is trying to determine whether he lied when he told a congressional committee last year that he had not used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner, Roger Clemens said that he chose to comment publicly on Tuesday because it is the release date of a book that talks about his alleged steroids history.