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IMPORTANT INFORMATION
If you have wondered, how do steroids work, here’s a closer look at both types of steroids and how they work.
Steroids have the power to provide healing, but some steroids have the ability to create nasty side effects.
Two of the most popular categories of steroids are corticosteroids and anabolic steroids, and the two categories of steroids are used in very different ways.
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Table of Contents
How Do Steroids Work?
Before looking at how these steroids work, it is important to know what corticosteroids are.
These man-made steroids are very close to a hormone produced naturally by the adrenal glands known as cortisol.
While corticosteroids are often simply called “steroids,” they are very different from anabolic steroidsthat are used by athletes seeking better performance.
Just a few examples of corticosteroids include prednisone, methylprednisolone, and cortisone.
These steroids are available in multiple forms, including eardrops, skin creams, eye drops, injections, and orals.
Corticosteroids work in several different ways. First, they have the ability to decrease inflammation within the body.
How do steroids work on inflammation? Inflammation occurs when the body’s chemicals and white blood cells work to protect the body against foreign substances and infection.
However, some diseases result in the malfunction of the immune system, resulting in inflammation working against the tissues of the body, resulting in damage.
How Do Steroids Reduce Inflammation?
Some of the signs of inflammation are pain, redness, swelling, and warmth. Corticosteroids help to reduce the production of the chemicals causing inflammation, reducing tissue damage.
These steroids also affect the way your white blood cells work, reducing immune system activity.
If you’re wondering how do steroids work for pain or questioning how do steroids work on back pain, once again it’s the ability of steroids to target inflammation.
When the steroids help reduce inflammation, this often helps to reduce the pain as well, since pain is one of the symptoms of inflammation.
Steroids & Poison Ivy
Not only are steroids used to treat pain, they are often used as a treatment for poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak.
How do steroids work on poison ivy? Allergic reactions often involve the body attacking itself, which is an immune system response.
When corticosteroids are used to treat poison ivy and other similar issues, the steroids work on the immune system to help reduce the severity of the problem, and in many cases, steroids help to shorten the length of time the rash stays around as well. Check out the best bulking cycles here.
Of course, while corticosteroids are very useful for treating back pain, poison ivy, and immune system disorders, they do come with some potential side effects. Some of the common side effects of these types of steroids may include:
- Puffy, swollen face
- Mood swings
- Weight gain
- Increase in appetite
- Swelling and water retention
- High blood pressure
- Muscle weakness
- Acne
- Stomach irritation
- Difficulty sleeping
- Restlessness or nervousness
- Osteoporosis
- Reduced resistance to infections
- Blurry vision
How Do Anabolic Steroids Work In The Human Body?
Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone.
How do anabolic steroids work? You first need to understand the effects of testosterone on the body.
First, there are androgenic effects, such as growth of facial and body hair, voice deepening, and the development of male genitals.
Second, testosterone also has anabolic effects, which includes increased muscle mass and bone mass.
All steroids come with both anabolic and androgenic effects, but some have been specifically developed to have minimal androgenic effects.
How Do Steroids Build Muscle?
How do steroids work to increase muscle growth?
Anabolic steroids help to stimulate anabolic effects in the body by plugging into the protein receptors that are on or in cells that help to create new proteins within the cells.
This results in an increase in RNA activity. When new proteins are constructed, users begin to see increases in muscle strength and size.
While this already happens normally within the body, steroids help to increase or stimulate this natural process by binding to the protein cells’ receptor sites.
If you are wondering how do steroids work in bodybuilding, it’s important to realize that steroids also help to increase nitrogen retention.
Nitrogen is found in proteins and it plays an essential role in tissue building. When bodybuilders use steroids, they have a positive nitrogen balance, which can help bodybuilders build bulk and muscle.
Steroids Side Effects
Unfortunately, these steroids also come with multiple side effects.
While steroids have a therapeutic effect, they also have side effects. One of the main issues with the way anabolic steroids work is their ability to damage the liver.
Steroids have to be metabolized and excreted in the liver, since the liver has to work to detoxify steroids, the liver works hard to eliminate the toxins and poisonous substances produced by the steroids.
This has the potential to result in inflammation or hepatitis of the liver.
In some cases, this may even lead to problems with cirrhosis of the liver, which can progressively scar the liver, eventually resulting in liver failure.
Steroids also have the potential to cause heart disease. Two types of cholesterol are carried in the blood, including good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.
Some studies show that steroid users often have high levels of bad cholesterol and low levels of good cholesterol, which can raise the risk of heart disease.
Gynecomastia is often caused by steroid use as well. If you understand how do steroids work, you realize that they are changed into estrogen when they are metabolized.
The higher estrogen levels often result in the enlargement of the mammary glands in men. Men are not the only one negatively affected by steroids side effects.
Since steroids also have the androgenic effects, they can result in serious side effects in women.
Some potential side effects women often experience because of how steroids work include unwanted hair growth, male pattern baldness, and deepening of the voice.
References
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