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Viewing Hormones and Steroids - a Double-Edged SwordHormones and Steroids - a Double-Edged Sword
By Dr. Randy Wysong
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Hormones, such as anabolic steroids, are among the most dangerous of all drugs. Although they may produce short-term changes, their long-term consequences are a poor trade off. The disease piper must always be paid if we ignore nature. When I was a young boy, seeing muscles bulge here and there was cool. If a vein popped out a little that was even more awesome. There were no real fitness centers or gyms back then. About the only option was to order Charles Atlas paraphernalia from comic book ads, or get muscles the 'legitimate' way by hard work. I did lots of farm work and construction, but leaving nothing to chance, I built my own weight set with a pipe that I would insert into the holes of cement blocks. I loved the sense of strength that exercise brought and reveled in the pumped muscles that followed a workout. It was the way we young boys thought, particularly those of us involved in sports. We would even compare muscle bumps on the school bus every morning and banter about who could do the most push-ups. My Dad believed that exercise could make a person 'muscle bound.' I guess he must have worried as he saw me in the backyard hoisting my pipe with blocks dangling from each end. He chided and teased me about this, and always made me feel like I should have been spending my time hoeing the garden or chopping wood. The now popular use of anabolic steroids, however, is a perversion of what should be clean and healthy personal development. Use of these hormones totally misses the point. The inflated bodies created through their use do not represent health, yet 'health and fitness' magazines are filled with photo spreads presenting steroid-bloated behemoths as icons we should emulate. The influence on the young is particularly dangerous. Although strength and fitness are something to aspire to, oversized muscular development is disease, not health. At the cellular level, enlargement is due to hypertrophy (increased cell size), and/or hyperplasia (increased cell numbers). It is a principle in medical pathology that enlarged organs resulting from these cellular changes usually signal stress and disease. An enlarged heart or kidney is an indication that the organ is reaching the end of its adaptive rope. We normally do not think of grossly enlarged muscles as pathology, but we should. The damage these powerful chemicals can do is enormous; and there is a lesson here for anyone taking hormones for any purpose. Of all the drugs dispensed in medical practice, hormones are among the scariest. They can create dramatic and immediate results (and that is their allure), but hormone treatment continued for any length of time comes back to haunt. An example in humans is the use of testosterone patches to increase libido in women. If they are taken for any length of time, passion may be triggered, but the voice will start to deepen and a beard to blossom - not so good for the libido of the husband. Corticosteroids taken for allergies or injuries can result in extremely serious adrenal gland diseases, immune suppression, and vulnerability to infection. Birth control hormones are fraught with dangers, yet their use has even become fashionable to limit the inconvenience of menstruation. Hormone replacement therapy in menopausal women is directly linked to breast cancer. The same dangers apply in veterinary medicine. At one time, hormones were given to dogs for birth control. Years after discontinuing the drugs, treated dogs would present to veterinarians with life threatening illness, extreme thirst, and white blood cell counts off the charts. Their abdomens would enlarge due to the uterus swelling gigantically with pus (pyometra). The body is extremely wise. For example, if an arm is broken and put in a sling, the muscles do not grow bigger, they atrophy. This is because the body is also efficient and will not do what is not needed. Why grow muscles, or even maintain them, if they are not needed? When the sling is removed, the arm will have lost most of its strength and will have withered. The body shuttled its resources into building bigger muscles in the arm that had to perform double duty. The body does not pay attention to your agenda, it just does what it must to stay alive, make do, and meet everyday stress. The same thing would happen to both arms - to the whole body - if servants did everything and we just reclined in our easy chairs. If we then suddenly had to get out of the chair and run a mile, or lift 200 pounds to survive, we would not make it. An atrophied and weak body could not rise to the challenge. Hormones are metabolic slings. They replace the hormones that the body normally produces. When this happens there is a negative feedback mechanism: the more that hormones from the outside are introduced into the body, the less the body does what it no longer needs to, which is to synthesize its own hormones. The metabolic 'muscles' that create hormones atrophy. If all of a sudden the outside source of hormones is withdrawn, the organs that are now withered from the easy-chair life do not have the strength to produce their own hormones. Since almost every function in the body is hormone influenced, and every hormone interacts with every other hormone in some way, catastrophe results. Is it any wonder that over time, modern anabolic bodybuilders are racked with heart disease, cancer, immune weakness, atrophy of the testicles, digestive failure, and metabolic disorders? A huge number of high school kids are now trying to 'get big' with steroids. Parents need to be aware that this fad is prevalent and not innocuous. If the argument is that taking hormones is the only way to excel in a sport, then have them change sports. Insist. Adults who are toying with the idea of taking hormones for one reason or another should think long and hard. Read the contraindications and cautions on the drug insert sheets. Find other ways to stimulate the body's own natural ability to enhance or improve itself through exercise, lifestyle, and nutrition. We cannot put our organs in slings by taking hormones and then expect long-term benefits. The disease piper will always be paid if we ignore, attempt to supersede, or defy nature. About the Author: For further reading, or for more information about Dr. Wysong and the Wysong Corporation, please visit www.wysong.net. For resources on healthier foods for people, including snacks and breakfast cereals please visit http://www.cerealwysong.com. Article Source: 1st Rate Articles - http://1stRateArticles.com |
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