Steroids Blog

According to a new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, college athletes making use of performance enhancers such as steroids are at an increased risk of abusing alcohol and indulging in substance abuse.

It was found in a study involving 234 male athletes that athletes making use of performance enhancers such as steroids and weight-loss supplements are more likely to go for drugs like marijuana and cocaine than their counterparts not keen to experiment with performance enhancers in the first place.

From Sciencedaily.com:

In their study, the researchers, led by Dr. Jennifer F. Buckman, assistant research professor at the Center of Alcohol Studies, found that nearly one third of the athletes acknowledged using a performance-enhancing substance in the past year. The list included banned substances like steroids, creatine, “Andro,” stimulants and weight-loss aids.

As a group, athletes who used performance-enhancing substances reported higher rates of drug and alcohol use. Seventy percent said they had used marijuana and one third admitted to cocaine use, versus 22 percent and 3 percent of athletes who did not use performance enhancers. They also had higher rates of smoking, binge drinking and prescription-drug misuse.

The results also hint at some reasons for the elevated rates of drug and alcohol use. Athletes who used performance enhancers were more likely than nonusers to be natural sensation seekers — a desire to have new and varied experiences — but they were also more likely to say they used drugs or alcohol specifically to cope with stress and anxiety.

This, Pandina says, suggest that these athletes often see a “utilitarian value” to using recreational drugs. “They are using them to cope with the problems of day-to-day living.”

It was remarked by study co-author Dr. Robert J. Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, that the concern is that many athletes are not only using recreational drugs but are also suffering from harmful effects of such drugs.

A protein, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is necessary for normal growth of blood vessel, has been found to be responsible for the cell overgrowth in polyps’ development characterizing one of the most severe forms of sinusitis. This finding was revealed by a study by researchers from the John Hopkins.

This type of sinusitis is not subtle in nature, as per Jean Kim, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Allergy and Asthma Center at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

From News-Medical.Net:

Kim explains that surgery to remove the polyps is one of the most common treatments for this disease. However, nasal and sinus polyps in these patients almost always regrow. “Once the patient has entered the cycle of growing polyps, it’s very hard to get out,” she says. Another common treatment is oral steroids, but these drugs are fraught with many harmful side effects and also only temporarily treat the disease.

She and her Johns Hopkins colleagues have long studied sinusitis, often growing sinus cells isolated from patients in petri dishes. After noticing that cells from patients with polyps typically multiplied faster than cells from normal patients, the researchers speculated that cells from polyp patients might be producing extra amounts of some type of growth factor, a protein that encourages cell growth.

To identify which growth factor might be to blame, the researchers had sinusitis patients with and without polyps rinse their sinus passages with a wash solution, then tested the runoff for the presence of various growth factors. They found that solution from patients with polyps contained high amounts of a substance called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, a protein important for normal blood vessel growth that also seems to play a key role in a variety of diseases, including cancer. The more VEGF they found in a cell culture, the faster those cells grew.

The findings appeared in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine suggested that there could be development of a future treatment option that will make use of a nasal spray with an anti-VEGF agent in it.

A class of antibiotics presently used to treat varying bacterial infections may lead to double vision.

The finding was revealed in the September issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (Academy).

The researchers led by Frederick W. Fraunfelder, M.D., said that medical practitioners need to observe a high sense of care before recommending fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics, for treating bacterial infections and can stop the therapy in case of diplopia occurrence.

From News-Medical.Net:

The researchers, led by Frederick W. Fraunfelder, M.D., found 171 cases between 1986 and 2009 of fluoroquinolone use associated with double vision through a review of reports from the Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, and the National Registry of Drug-Induced Ocular Side Effects. The median patient age was 51.6 years, medication doses were within recommended levels, and the interval from starting medication to onset of double vision was 9.6 days on average. Medication was discontinued in 53 patients, and diplopia resolved in all cases.

“Doctors need to be aware of this potential reaction when prescribing these antibiotics and consider stopping therapy if diplopia occurs,” Dr. Fraunfelder said. He also said that special care should be taken with patients who are older than 60, have had renal failure, or are taking steroids, and that thorough ophthalmic and neurological exams should be done to rule out other causes of double vision.

According to 2009 review as per the cornea panel of the Academy’s Ophthalmic Technology Assessment Committee, led by W. Barry Lee, M.D., Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSEK) corneal transplant procedure is the safest and most effective option for treating corneal endothelial diseases.

According to a study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers, edema reduction is what promotes the beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs for treating deadly brain tumors, glioblastomas, and not the direct anti-tumor effects.

It was remarked by Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Laboratory in the MGH Department of Radiation Oncology, and the study’s co-senior author, that the finding clearly suggest that the potential of improving patient survival rate is possible with the antiangiogenesis therapy even in cases with persistent tumor growth.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Mice treated with cediranib were found to have significant reductions in the size and permeability of tumor-associated blood vessels, compared with animals that did not receive the drug. Although treatment did not reduce the rate of tumor growth, mice receiving cediranib lived significantly longer than the control animals. Another group of tumor-bearing mice received the steroid drug most commonly used to treat edema, and though those animals also lived longer than controls, the survival benefit was greater for the mice receiving cediranib.

“This is the first paper to show that vascular normalization alone, without chemotherapy, can be effective against some tumors by controlling edema and that this anti-edema effect is better than that of currently used steroids,” Jain says. “Unfortunately, these anti-VEGF agents did not slow the tumor growth rate in these models; and since recurrent glioblastomas are highly resistant to currently used chemotherapy drugs, even if vascular normalization increases drug delivery, there may be little or no additional increase in patient survival. We urgently need to find better anti-tumor and anti-angiogenic agents.”

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Damon Runyon Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Montesi Family Research Fund and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals that manufactures cediranib under the brand name RECENTIN.

If steroids are withdrawn at early stage post liver transplantation, a reduced tolerance and higher rejection incidences to glucose may be considered to necessitate diabetes treatment.

The finding was suggested after the first double-blind placebo-controlled study was conducted to examine the early steroid withdrawal effects. This study was published in an issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS).

From News-Medical.Net:

“Although the incidence of acute rejection in the placebo group was increased, it was easily controlled in most of the cases and did not affect long-term graft histology or survival,” the authors note, adding that the increase may ultimately be acceptable if steroids could be eliminated. However, the main goal of steroid elimination is to reduce metabolic complications and this study showed no difference in cholesterol or hypertension, with a trend toward a decreased incidence of diabetes in the placebo group.

The authors conclude: “Indeed, while there are many arguments in favor of corticosteroid withdrawal beyond 3 months posttransplantation, in terms of safety and efficacy, our study demonstrates that earlier withdrawal at day 14 is not completely safe in terms of rejection, but seems efficient in terms of improvement of glucose tolerability,” which could decrease long-term mortality due to cardiovascular disease.

The study is expected to help members of the medical fraternity to handle complicated issues with a greater sense of caution.

The growing popularity of anabolic steroids is something that has been troubling anti-doping officials in the recent past. Despite many measures to curb the use of steroids, there have been reports of growing number of steroid users. The trends are alarming in the worlds of bodybuilding, professional sports, and aging community.

With reports of many sportsmen on steroids coming these days, one often makes a conclusion that almost every one was on steroids till steroid testing measures were introduced by the anti-doping fraternity.

From SteroidTimes.com:

In a recent study done by Strahm et al at the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses not very reliable (1). They examined the T/E ratio and its variances between ethnic groups because of a testosterone over epitestosterone (T/E) ratio exceeding 4.0 is considered as suspicious of testosterone administration, irrespectively of individual heterogeneous factors such as the athlete’s ethnicity. Strahm and colleagues found that a deletion polymorphism in the UGT2B17 gene was demonstrated to account for a significant part of the inter-individual variability in the T/E between Caucasians and Asians. By estimation of the prevalence of the UGT2B17 deletion/deletion genotype (African: 22%; Asian: 81%; Caucasian: 10%; Hispanic: 7%), ethnic-specific thresholds were developed for a specificity of 99% for the T/E (African: 5.6; Asian: 3.8; Caucasian: 5.7; Hispanic: 5.8).

In other words the group at the Swiss doping lab found out that a blanket T/E ratio is not accurate enough for the testing protocol and that “significant differences have been observed between all ethnic groups.” There conclusion was “that an athlete’s endocrinological passport consisting of a longitudinal follow-up together with the ethnicity and/or the genotype would strongly enhance the detection of testosterone abuse.”

One of the biggest reasons behind the often unshared relationship between sports and steroids is the fact that steroids allow sportsmen to think and act beyond the normal, and for staying ahead of the competition without any hiccups.

The cycling team of Lance Armstrong and of this year’s Tour de France winner is finding it hard to locate sponsor, a fact that suggests that the sport of cycling is collapsing these days under the weight of continuing doping issues.

This team, the Discovery Channel, has been one of the cycling sports’ most successful franchises but recent doping issues in cycling has even left the otherwise optimistic Armstrong into a pessimist about short term future of the sport.

From NYTimes.com:

Many of cycling’s best riders have failed drug tests or been linked to doping in recent years, and doping issues last month all but overwhelmed the sport’s marquee event, the Tour de France. For a sport whose teams enjoy no revenue from ticket sales or television rights, the resulting publicity has started to drain its lifeblood: the sponsors that spend millions of dollars to finance the teams.

Known for the past three years as Discovery Channel and before that as the United States Postal Service squad, the team is owned by Tailwind Sports, a San Francisco-based company that is partly owned by Armstrong. The only American team at cycling’s top rank, it has been searching for a new sponsor since February, when the parent of the Discovery Channel network decided not to renew its three-year contract.

It is worth noting here that not even a single rider of the Discovery team has ever failed a drug test yet that is not sufficient to assure sponsors and avoid the doping suspicions besting the sport. This is nothing but a bad news to the fans and players.

The use of Avastin alone may prove to be an effective option for the treatment of a subgroup of recurrent Grade 3 brain tumors, according to a retrospective study of 22 patients conducted by a researcher at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

The drug is not only safe but also very efficacious in prolonging progression.

Avastin, known generically as bevacizumab, is the first approved therapy designed to inhibit angiogenesis.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Chamberlain said he expects that patients treated with the drug will have a marked improvement in their quality of life because the use of steroids, a common treatment that has significant side effects, can be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

“While treatment with Avastin does dramatically improve survival time, the time that patients have left is of better quality and less about living with the disease itself,” Chamberlain said. In this study, the patients, ages 24-60, received an infusion of bevacizumab every two weeks for an average of 14.5 cycles (range was two to 39 cycles). Fourteen (64 percent) patients showed a partial response to the medicine as shown on radiographic scans. Two patients had stable disease and six had progressive disease. Progression-free survival ranged from three to 18 months and survival for the entire group of patients was three to 19 months.

Chamberlain, director of the Neuro-oncology Program at the SCCA and a professor of neurology and neurological surgery at the University Of Washington School Of Medicine, said that bevacizumab boasts of a potential of proving itself to be an effective palliative treatment.

APP Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Fresenius Kabi Pharmaceuticals Holding, Inc., (NASDAQ:APCVZ) has announced its plans to launch the injectable version of Chlorothiazide Sodium.

The launch is expected to be done in the fourth quarter of 2009 after the company reported receiving an approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

From News-Medical.Net:

Chlorothiazide Sodium for Injection, USP is therapeutically equivalent to the reference-listed drug Diuril®, which is marketed by Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals. According to 2008 IMS data, sales of this product in the United States were approximately $51 million1. Chlorothiazide is a diuretic used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension), as well as fluid retention in people with congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, kidney disorders, or edema caused by taking steroids or estrogen.

“The recent stream of ANDA approvals reinforces APP’s commitment to provide our customers and the patients they treat with a consistently expanding portfolio of products,” said Thomas H. Silberg, president and chief executive officer of APP Pharmaceuticals.

Chlorothiazide Sodium for Injection, USP by APP will be available in single dose vials of 500 mg. It will be AP-rated, bar-coded, and latex-free.