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Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

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Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#21

Post by IThoughtYouGNU »

uptown wrote: post #19
symlinkk wrote: post #16

Why are steroids even a controlled drug? If a man wants to use them and knows the risks he should be able to. Same with any drug I guess.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

So, you mean like all pro sports already right now?

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#22

Post by wisty »

gruez wrote: post #18
cgh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In men, there are complications with your body’s natural testosterone production. If you inject test (the most basic anabolic steroid) then in order to maintain a sort of homeostasis, your body will lower its natural test production. The same goes for any other anabolic steroid, as they are all test derivatives. As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be…

>As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be a delay while this happens and it leads to unpleasant, though temporary, side effects, like weight gain and a loss of sexual appetite. Why not just slowly taper it off?

Test is injected into muscles, usually once every 2-4 weeks. It can't be taken orally. This makes dosage control difficult. The long half-life also means that your body's control systems are slow to act (if they reacted quickly then you'd risk ending up with too much, and be unable to get rid of it).

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#23

Post by moron4hire »

uptown wrote: post #19
symlinkk wrote: post #16

Why are steroids even a controlled drug? If a man wants to use them and knows the risks he should be able to. Same with any drug I guess.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

These athletes play in leagues that make their own rules and have their own governing bodies. What does the civil government have to do with that?

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#24

Post by fallingknife »

uptown wrote: post #19
symlinkk wrote: post #16

Why are steroids even a controlled drug? If a man wants to use them and knows the risks he should be able to. Same with any drug I guess.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

Given that pro football players basically have to subject themselves to brain damage I don't think steroids usage is too unfair of a burden.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#25

Post by flemhans »

moron4hire wrote: post #23
uptown wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

These athletes play in leagues that make their own rules and have their own governing bodies. What does the civil government have to do with that?

And why should the whole world depend on some people who want to play games with each other?

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#26

Post by HenryKissinger »

uptown wrote: post #19
symlinkk wrote: post #16

Why are steroids even a controlled drug? If a man wants to use them and knows the risks he should be able to. Same with any drug I guess.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

> We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports.

Sports competitions are already rife with athletes on the juice. So it's not like officially authorizing the use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs in competitions would significantly change anything for the worst. One can practice a sport without choosing to enter a competition. The health benefits don't require a medal.

> You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport.

Adults are responsible for the consequences of their own decisions. No one is forcing athletes to partake in competitions. Being competitive for the Olympics already pretty much require one to begin intensive training in childhood, if not earlier.

It is very difficult for one to become a professional musician and make a comfortable living from playing music if one doesn't dedicate most of their waking hours to practice and graduate from Juilliard.

It is very difficult for one to become an investment banker if one doesn't come from a target school and has a perfect academic record.

Unless you are born rich, we all have to sacrifice something, be it time, passions, family, or money.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#27

Post by askvictor »

uptown wrote: post #19
symlinkk wrote: post #16

Why are steroids even a controlled drug? If a man wants to use them and knows the risks he should be able to. Same with any drug I guess.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

I heard an interesting ethical discussion about this; considering natural levels of testosterone vary considerably between humans, couldn't it be considered fairer to allow steroid use provided total levels are below a particular level? It's interesting considering that NSAIDs are used in pretty huge amounts to keep (for example) football players on the field despite injuries, so what you're talking about is already happening to a degree.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#28

Post by BadCookie »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #10

I don't really understand. Clearly the muscles work to some extent, so isn't making more a lot better than doing nothing? > It’d be like if you had a construction project, and you found out that all of the wooden beams you were receiving from a supplier were rotten. Would you order more beams from that same supplier to fix the problem? If my other option is shrugging and doing nothing and being sad as the house falls…

I don’t think the author of the linked article understands either. Why is it obvious that myostatin inhibitors would ameliorate muscular dystrophy in mice but not humans? Nothing in this essay answers that question. Some people with certain types of muscular dystrophy spend years or even decades at near-normal muscle strength, so if you could return them to their previous muscle mass somehow, presumably it would do some good.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#29

Post by gzer0 »

Fezzik wrote: post #6

Interesting close-to-the-end note related to much of the medical research (on mice) that gets posted to HN: “The end result, in retrospect, was predictable: they successfully cured muscular dystrophy in mice, but not in humans.”

A cure for muscular dystrophy for humans already exists. Only problem is, it costs a whopping $2 million USD.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-novartis-genetherapy/nova...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/24/7254041...

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#30

Post by wyre »

gruez wrote: post #18
cgh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In men, there are complications with your body’s natural testosterone production. If you inject test (the most basic anabolic steroid) then in order to maintain a sort of homeostasis, your body will lower its natural test production. The same goes for any other anabolic steroid, as they are all test derivatives. As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be…

>As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be a delay while this happens and it leads to unpleasant, though temporary, side effects, like weight gain and a loss of sexual appetite. Why not just slowly taper it off?

Exogenous testosterone in any quantity will make the body stop producing natural test. If the goal is to have the body produce natural testosterone again tapering off will only delay and make it more difficult for that to happen.
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