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- Jun 6, 2002
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Geriatric Protein Deficiency
It’s not surprising that elderly people often experience protein deficiencies that cause them to lose alarming amounts of muscle mass. Accordingly, this loss of muscle mass can lead to chronic weakness, perpetual bed rest, other diseases, and a premature death.
Often, geriatrics simply suffer from a decrease in appetite that leads to protein deficiency. While physicians may recommend eating a diet higher in protein and carbohydrates, compliance is often low because they simply don’t have an appetite (possibly due in part to decreased production of Testosterone). And, even if they do eat more protein, exceeding doses of 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight is often useless because they have difficulties with digestion, possibly caused by a diminished formation of digestive proteases.
Administering steroids allows the patient to take in minimum amounts of protein while at the same time stimulating formation of cellular protein. The end results include increased nitrogen retention, increased muscle tone, increases in body weight, and increases in appetite and sense of well-being. In short, steroids can make old people live longer, more productive lives free of much of the suffering that often accompanies old age.
Diseases of the Skeleton
In the past, anabolic steroids were often used to treat osteoporosis as they could provide an osteogenic effect via modification of cytokine production within bone marrow as well as enhancement of osteoblast differentiation and osteoclast recruitment. In short, the steroids strengthened bones. This therapy has recently experienced a resurgence and research indicates that nandrolone decanoate at a dosage of 50 mg. every 2 to 4 weeks is very effective in treating the disease.
It was also relatively common to use anabolic steroids in the prevention of osteoporosis that often accompanies long-term usage of high doses of glucocorticoid steroids. Additionally, researchers Wolf and Loeser pointed out a half-century ago that steroids were able to accelerate the solidification of the fractures seen in Paget’s disease.
Years ago, after pure preparations of androgens first became available, reports started to surface on how anabolic steroids accelerated the healing of fractures. This may be related to steroids restoring the extreme dip in calcium balance that often accompanies broken bones. They may also have a direct effect on the region of bone regeneration itself. While more research is needed in this area, the prospect of healing bone fractures much more quickly is incredibly appealing.
Diseases of the Musculature
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, anabolic steroids showed promising results in ameliorating the effects of muscular dystrophy. Between 20 and 50% of treated children experienced a considerable improvement in mobility and strength. Unfortunately, due to the virilizing effects of steroids, these experiments were stopped.
Luckily, the advent of newer steroids like oxandrolone (that don’t cause virilizing effects) has caused researchers to reconsider the use of steroids in treating muscular dystrophy. Obviously steroids aren’t a cure, but they can delay the debilitating effects of the disease.
Kidney Diseases
Anabolic steroids were once thought to be valuable in the treatment of acute kidney damage (from heavy metals or chemical overdose).
Patients suffering from the aforementioned conditions experienced an increased rate of healing when given anabolic steroids, most noticeably in the regeneration of tubules.
Furthermore, in cases of chronic kidney insufficiency, up to 20% of cases responded positively to anabolic steroids. Another reason to use steroids with kidney patients might be related to protein. Since kidney patients are often on protein-restricted diets, the use of steroids might allow them to subsist on lower amounts of protein since the steroids themselves are nitrogen sparing.
It should also be pointed out, however, that steroids had no effect in treating patients with kidney failure resulting from severe infections, severe injury, or profuse hemorrhages.
Liver Diseases
While oral steroids are often associated with liver disease, researchers found that Testosterone (I.M.) had profound effects in preventing or curing cirrhosis. Of 50 patients that were followed for up to 6 years, 30 responded to Testosterone therapy with decreases in portal pressure, decrease of ascites, and an overall improvement in liver function. The dosage used was 100 mg. of Testosterone propionate for 12 days, followed by 100 mg. every other day for several months.
Steroids may also have a role in treating alcoholic hepatitis. When oxandrolone was administered to patients with moderate to severe alcoholic hepatitis at a dosage of 20 mg/day, they experienced marked improvement. Another study using the same drug showed that the long-term survival of such patients was significantly improved after being treated with 80 mg. of oxandrolone a day for 30days.
Wasting
Back in the early nineties, I befriended a doctor who had AIDS and was a pioneer in using steroids to combat the wasting associated with the disease. While once weak from the disease and the large number of drugs included in his personal pharmacoepia, anabolic steroids restored his muscle mass, his energy, and his will to live. I published several of his articles in the now defunct Muscle Media 2000 and his discoveries started a groundswell. Now, many progressive physicians prescribe anabolic steroids for their AIDS patients.
While almost any anabolic steroid will promote lean muscle mass, oxandrolone is most often used to promote weight gain and/or prevent catabolism. Aside from AIDS patients, it can be used to treat wasting in people who’ve had extensive surgery as well as any type of severe trauma, chronic infections, severe burns, or long-term corticosteroid therapy.
Cancer
I have a friend who’s a prominent oncologist in Southern California. Partly on my suggestion, he’s begun giving oxandrolone to some of his prostate cancer patients who are suffering from chemotherapy-related wasting. While steroids have long been contraindicated for use in patients with prostate cancer, oxandrolone offers somewhat unique advantages because it doesn’t reduce to DHT or aromatize to estrogen–either one of which could possibly exacerbate prostate carcinoma.
The result? His patients are stronger, more energetic, retain more muscle, and in short are better able (psychologically and physiologically) to weather the chemotherapy. While I’m not a doctor, it seems that steroids should be used almost routinely in people being treated for non-androgen related cancers who are struggling with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or the wasting effects of the disease itself. The simple fact is that with improved strength comes longer life expectancy.
Steroids have also been used in postmenopausal breast cancer patients. Nandrolone decanoate at 50 mg every 2 weeks or 100 mg every 3 weeks was shown to be about as effective as tamoxifen at a dose of 20 mg/daily. It’s best suited in cases where the patient fails on other forms of therapy (typically tamoxifen). While nandrolone was used in research studies, any steroid that doesn’t aromatize and has a high AR (Androgen Receptor) binding affinity is typically thought to be best for the treatment of breast cancer.
Additionally, 50 to 200 mg. of oxymetholone a day may help treat and/or prevent myelosuppression induced by cancer chemotherapy (myelosuppression is an overall suppression of the cells produced in bone marrow).
Heart Diseases
Researchers Fiegel and Kelling found way back in 1962 that Testosterone affected the heart in the following positive ways:
--Increase of arterial blood flow
--Increase of contractile heart muscle
--Increase of total heart capacity
--Positive effect on cholesterol
One of the almost invariable effects of heart surgery is that cardiac patients often suffer a decrease in intellectual capacity and disposition. Steroids, however, were found to increase intellectual capacity of heart patients, improve disposition, and enhance cardiac output in general.
Yesteryear’s researchers offered one caveat, though: steroids, because of their fluid-retaining properties, had to be used with caution in patients suffering from cardiac-related edema.
Blood Diseases
Nandrolone decanoate has been used to treat anemia stemming from renal disease. The dose used is 50-100 mg/week for women and 100-200 mg/week for men. All androgens have some erythropoietic activity and thus they could also be used for this reason. Nandrolone may also be useful for those with aplastic anemia, which is essentially a condition where the person’s bone marrow fails to produce platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells.
Stanozolol is approved for the treatment of hereditary angioedema, using 2 milligrams three times a day tapered gradually to 2 milligrams daily. It may also be useful in treating hemophilia A. As most of you know, hemophilia is caused by a deficiency of a clotting factor, which leads to excessive bleeding via lack of a clotting effect.
Miscellaneous
Anabolic steroids have also been used with varying degrees of success in a host of unrelated problems/idiopathies/conditions. They’ve been used to improve anxiety symptoms as well as cluster headaches; increase cognitive function; treat delayed puberty, depression, chemotherapy induced Leydig cell insufficiency, osteoporosis in men, severe burns, sexual dysfunction, and even vulvar dystrophy.
Even diabetic retinopathy has improved upon treatment with anabolic steroids as well as rheumatoid arthritis and Raynaud’s phenomenon, which is a disorder characterized by pain and discoloration of the extremities (e.g., fingers, toes, ears, and nose).
Some studies have even shown steroids to increase spontaneous antibody production, in addition to formation of antibodies previously inhibited by chemotherapy.
In fact, steroids might well be considered in treating almost any condition or situation where a positive nitrogen balance (trauma, post surgery, disease, chemical poisoning, chemotherapy) might increase the rate of healing.
Conclusion
Clearly, more research is needed. Unfortunately, it’ll probably never happen as long as we let the uninformed make reckless statements about these potentially life-saving drugs.
No, I’m not turning a deaf ear to the potential negative side effects--the negative side effects that are repeated to us almost daily by the lay press and powerful uneducated people. All drugs have side effects and must be used wisely. However, to categorically condemn a class of drugs and inadvertently sweep them out of existence is just plain stupid.
A special thanks to Cy Willson for doing a ton of research!
It’s not surprising that elderly people often experience protein deficiencies that cause them to lose alarming amounts of muscle mass. Accordingly, this loss of muscle mass can lead to chronic weakness, perpetual bed rest, other diseases, and a premature death.
Often, geriatrics simply suffer from a decrease in appetite that leads to protein deficiency. While physicians may recommend eating a diet higher in protein and carbohydrates, compliance is often low because they simply don’t have an appetite (possibly due in part to decreased production of Testosterone). And, even if they do eat more protein, exceeding doses of 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight is often useless because they have difficulties with digestion, possibly caused by a diminished formation of digestive proteases.
Administering steroids allows the patient to take in minimum amounts of protein while at the same time stimulating formation of cellular protein. The end results include increased nitrogen retention, increased muscle tone, increases in body weight, and increases in appetite and sense of well-being. In short, steroids can make old people live longer, more productive lives free of much of the suffering that often accompanies old age.
Diseases of the Skeleton
In the past, anabolic steroids were often used to treat osteoporosis as they could provide an osteogenic effect via modification of cytokine production within bone marrow as well as enhancement of osteoblast differentiation and osteoclast recruitment. In short, the steroids strengthened bones. This therapy has recently experienced a resurgence and research indicates that nandrolone decanoate at a dosage of 50 mg. every 2 to 4 weeks is very effective in treating the disease.
It was also relatively common to use anabolic steroids in the prevention of osteoporosis that often accompanies long-term usage of high doses of glucocorticoid steroids. Additionally, researchers Wolf and Loeser pointed out a half-century ago that steroids were able to accelerate the solidification of the fractures seen in Paget’s disease.
Years ago, after pure preparations of androgens first became available, reports started to surface on how anabolic steroids accelerated the healing of fractures. This may be related to steroids restoring the extreme dip in calcium balance that often accompanies broken bones. They may also have a direct effect on the region of bone regeneration itself. While more research is needed in this area, the prospect of healing bone fractures much more quickly is incredibly appealing.
Diseases of the Musculature
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, anabolic steroids showed promising results in ameliorating the effects of muscular dystrophy. Between 20 and 50% of treated children experienced a considerable improvement in mobility and strength. Unfortunately, due to the virilizing effects of steroids, these experiments were stopped.
Luckily, the advent of newer steroids like oxandrolone (that don’t cause virilizing effects) has caused researchers to reconsider the use of steroids in treating muscular dystrophy. Obviously steroids aren’t a cure, but they can delay the debilitating effects of the disease.
Kidney Diseases
Anabolic steroids were once thought to be valuable in the treatment of acute kidney damage (from heavy metals or chemical overdose).
Patients suffering from the aforementioned conditions experienced an increased rate of healing when given anabolic steroids, most noticeably in the regeneration of tubules.
Furthermore, in cases of chronic kidney insufficiency, up to 20% of cases responded positively to anabolic steroids. Another reason to use steroids with kidney patients might be related to protein. Since kidney patients are often on protein-restricted diets, the use of steroids might allow them to subsist on lower amounts of protein since the steroids themselves are nitrogen sparing.
It should also be pointed out, however, that steroids had no effect in treating patients with kidney failure resulting from severe infections, severe injury, or profuse hemorrhages.
Liver Diseases
While oral steroids are often associated with liver disease, researchers found that Testosterone (I.M.) had profound effects in preventing or curing cirrhosis. Of 50 patients that were followed for up to 6 years, 30 responded to Testosterone therapy with decreases in portal pressure, decrease of ascites, and an overall improvement in liver function. The dosage used was 100 mg. of Testosterone propionate for 12 days, followed by 100 mg. every other day for several months.
Steroids may also have a role in treating alcoholic hepatitis. When oxandrolone was administered to patients with moderate to severe alcoholic hepatitis at a dosage of 20 mg/day, they experienced marked improvement. Another study using the same drug showed that the long-term survival of such patients was significantly improved after being treated with 80 mg. of oxandrolone a day for 30days.
Wasting
Back in the early nineties, I befriended a doctor who had AIDS and was a pioneer in using steroids to combat the wasting associated with the disease. While once weak from the disease and the large number of drugs included in his personal pharmacoepia, anabolic steroids restored his muscle mass, his energy, and his will to live. I published several of his articles in the now defunct Muscle Media 2000 and his discoveries started a groundswell. Now, many progressive physicians prescribe anabolic steroids for their AIDS patients.
While almost any anabolic steroid will promote lean muscle mass, oxandrolone is most often used to promote weight gain and/or prevent catabolism. Aside from AIDS patients, it can be used to treat wasting in people who’ve had extensive surgery as well as any type of severe trauma, chronic infections, severe burns, or long-term corticosteroid therapy.
Cancer
I have a friend who’s a prominent oncologist in Southern California. Partly on my suggestion, he’s begun giving oxandrolone to some of his prostate cancer patients who are suffering from chemotherapy-related wasting. While steroids have long been contraindicated for use in patients with prostate cancer, oxandrolone offers somewhat unique advantages because it doesn’t reduce to DHT or aromatize to estrogen–either one of which could possibly exacerbate prostate carcinoma.
The result? His patients are stronger, more energetic, retain more muscle, and in short are better able (psychologically and physiologically) to weather the chemotherapy. While I’m not a doctor, it seems that steroids should be used almost routinely in people being treated for non-androgen related cancers who are struggling with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or the wasting effects of the disease itself. The simple fact is that with improved strength comes longer life expectancy.
Steroids have also been used in postmenopausal breast cancer patients. Nandrolone decanoate at 50 mg every 2 weeks or 100 mg every 3 weeks was shown to be about as effective as tamoxifen at a dose of 20 mg/daily. It’s best suited in cases where the patient fails on other forms of therapy (typically tamoxifen). While nandrolone was used in research studies, any steroid that doesn’t aromatize and has a high AR (Androgen Receptor) binding affinity is typically thought to be best for the treatment of breast cancer.
Additionally, 50 to 200 mg. of oxymetholone a day may help treat and/or prevent myelosuppression induced by cancer chemotherapy (myelosuppression is an overall suppression of the cells produced in bone marrow).
Heart Diseases
Researchers Fiegel and Kelling found way back in 1962 that Testosterone affected the heart in the following positive ways:
--Increase of arterial blood flow
--Increase of contractile heart muscle
--Increase of total heart capacity
--Positive effect on cholesterol
One of the almost invariable effects of heart surgery is that cardiac patients often suffer a decrease in intellectual capacity and disposition. Steroids, however, were found to increase intellectual capacity of heart patients, improve disposition, and enhance cardiac output in general.
Yesteryear’s researchers offered one caveat, though: steroids, because of their fluid-retaining properties, had to be used with caution in patients suffering from cardiac-related edema.
Blood Diseases
Nandrolone decanoate has been used to treat anemia stemming from renal disease. The dose used is 50-100 mg/week for women and 100-200 mg/week for men. All androgens have some erythropoietic activity and thus they could also be used for this reason. Nandrolone may also be useful for those with aplastic anemia, which is essentially a condition where the person’s bone marrow fails to produce platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells.
Stanozolol is approved for the treatment of hereditary angioedema, using 2 milligrams three times a day tapered gradually to 2 milligrams daily. It may also be useful in treating hemophilia A. As most of you know, hemophilia is caused by a deficiency of a clotting factor, which leads to excessive bleeding via lack of a clotting effect.
Miscellaneous
Anabolic steroids have also been used with varying degrees of success in a host of unrelated problems/idiopathies/conditions. They’ve been used to improve anxiety symptoms as well as cluster headaches; increase cognitive function; treat delayed puberty, depression, chemotherapy induced Leydig cell insufficiency, osteoporosis in men, severe burns, sexual dysfunction, and even vulvar dystrophy.
Even diabetic retinopathy has improved upon treatment with anabolic steroids as well as rheumatoid arthritis and Raynaud’s phenomenon, which is a disorder characterized by pain and discoloration of the extremities (e.g., fingers, toes, ears, and nose).
Some studies have even shown steroids to increase spontaneous antibody production, in addition to formation of antibodies previously inhibited by chemotherapy.
In fact, steroids might well be considered in treating almost any condition or situation where a positive nitrogen balance (trauma, post surgery, disease, chemical poisoning, chemotherapy) might increase the rate of healing.
Conclusion
Clearly, more research is needed. Unfortunately, it’ll probably never happen as long as we let the uninformed make reckless statements about these potentially life-saving drugs.
No, I’m not turning a deaf ear to the potential negative side effects--the negative side effects that are repeated to us almost daily by the lay press and powerful uneducated people. All drugs have side effects and must be used wisely. However, to categorically condemn a class of drugs and inadvertently sweep them out of existence is just plain stupid.
A special thanks to Cy Willson for doing a ton of research!
