Corticosteroid Abuse Research Articles

Anabolic Steroid Use Among Male High School Seniors

To the Editor.— Recent attention has been given in the press and professional journals to the abuse of anabolic corticosteroids and human growth hormones used alone and in conjunction with other drugs by professional and amateur athletes as well as those interested in bodybuilding. 1-3 There are various potential health problems associated with the effects of steroids on natural hormonal production and the effects of exposure of various end-organs to nonphysiological concentrations of these substances. 4 To this list of consequences of the use of steroids we and others would add another possible health hazard: infection with human immunodeficiency virus (P. Goldstein, personal communication, October 1988). 5 Anabolic steroids are used both orally and intramuscularly. 1 It is not unusual for couples or groups of workout buddies to share injection equipment when administering steroids to specific muscles being developed, 3 with one individual of the couple or group injecting the

Corticosteroid abuse

Corticosteroid abuse

Use and abuse of corticosteroids in rheumatic diseases.

Most of the rheumatic diseases are characterised by inflammation of unknown aetiology, causing pain, loss of function, and varying degrees of tissue destruction and repair. When Hench first treated rheumatic disease with cortisone in 1945, the improvement in the patients' symptoms was so dramatic that a miracle drug seemed to have been discovered. As the years passed it became apparent that the disease processes for the most part were not cured, merely modified. Furthermore, a truly frightening array of side effects began to emerge as experience in the use of cortisone was extended. So much so that today, 3 decades later, systemic corticosteroid therapy is regarded as appropriate only in the most severe conditions, when life is threatened or aggressive disease has failed to respond to other measures. The decision to prescribe corticosteroid drugs should never be taken without due consideration of the metabolic effects, and an attempt should be made to balance the likely benefits to the patient against the known harmful side effects. J. Metabolic Action q{Corticosteroids

The Use and Abuse of Corticosteroids in the Treatment of Skin Diseases

The Use and Abuse of Corticosteroids in the Treatment of Skin Diseases