What is the effect of steroids on the body? This topic has been worrying athletes for many years. Today we will dispel the myths about anabolic steroids, and answer the main question: how dangerous are such drugs? The content of the article:
- Cell receptors
- Steroid action
- Benefit or harm
Currently, there are many theories about anabolic steroids. Some doctors are convinced that taking them does not make sense. In the body of an ordinary man, testosterone is contained in sufficient quantities to ensure muscle performance.
Cell receptors
Let's find out what cellular receptors are. For example, let's compare testosterone with a keyhole, and a cellular receptor with a key. If there is already a key in the keyhole, then there is nothing else there. Accordingly, in the event that the cellular receptor already has its own androgen, it does not need others. Additional androgen may be needed if testosterone is deficient, for example, when testosterone production decreases with age.
This view of anabolic steroids is scientific, but incompatible with what today's athletes want to achieve.
Doctors say that when the level of sex hormones is normal, which is observed in men under the age of 24-28, additional intake of synthetic drugs can weaken the functionality of androgen receptors. Accordingly, injections of anabolic steroids should provoke a complete stop of muscle gain, or significantly slow down their growth.
For example, the growth of the penis continues until a certain age, after which it stops growing, regardless of the amount of testosterone in the man's body. Doctors believe that this phenomenon is due to the response of androgen receptors to an increase in testosterone levels in the body. With age, receptors simply stop functioning.
The same phenomenon is observed in the young female body, when androgen receptors in the upper body stop responding to testosterone, which is produced in large quantities at this age. Therefore, women have weak upper body musculature and, accordingly, a feminine figure.
These facts, despite their reliability, cannot be used to assess the effect of anabolic steroids on the body of athletes.
Steroid action
It should be noted that the effect of steroids is different for individual biological tissues. As evidence, one can cite studies carried out on laboratory rats, from which all testosterone was previously withdrawn from the body. As a result, their muscle receptors were destroyed. But with the beginning of the introduction of testosterone in the form of injections, the destroyed muscles began to gradually recover, and over time they acquired the same volumes.
The question arose: what was the reason for the growth of muscle mass, because most of the androgen receptors were destroyed, and their number was much less than the original? The answer is this: muscle cells regenerated new androgen receptors, while their new number significantly exceeded the original.
Hence the assumption arises that the additional amount of anabolic steroids entering the human body causes an increase in the growth of androgen receptors in muscle tissues.
This is why high doses of anabolic steroids used by bodybuilders do not stop muscle gain, although the scientific evidence promises just that. The additional amount of testosterone in the blood causes the appearance of additional amounts of androgen receptors.
Steroids: benefit or harm?
To summarize, a greater amount of androgens provokes an increase in the hormonal sensitivity of muscle tissue and its increase in volume.
Therefore, the "cherished dream" of every athlete - to ensure a continuous anabolic cycle - becomes quite feasible. Indeed, without taking steroids, muscles cannot grow continuously, but only periodically. It is worth paying attention to the fact that muscle tissue is actively increasing within 3-5 days during a three-month training course.
Androgens have an additional opportunity to attach not only to their own androgen receptors. It's like having a universal key to all doors that will open any. The situation is the same with androgens - they have the ability to bind to catabolic receptors, which must bind glucocorticoids. As a result, an anti-catabolic effect is manifested.
There is, for example, a French-made steroid drug for termination of pregnancy, which is able to have an anticatobolic effect and block glucocorticoid receptors. A number of researchers believe that the anabolic result from taking steroids is due specifically to the phenomenon of blocking catabolic receptors.
Androgens in the human body are capable of producing powerful anabolic effects. In addition, they are multifunctional - they stimulate an increase in muscle mass and create compounds with androgen receptors. Androgens are powerful hormones with unlimited potential.
Androgens are steroid hormones that include testosterone and other types of hormones. There are artificial androgens. For example, dinabol or methandrostenolone. Glucocorticoids are also steroid hormones, but they are not catabolic or destroy muscle cells.
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