have you ever wondered what steroids really do to the human body now you might think that steroid use mostly only applies to professional athletes however the majority of individuals using these substances are actually recreational athletes that everyday person you might see working out at the gym with a high number of those being weightlifters and bodybuilders who use them to improve overall muscle size strength and personal appearance So today we're going to discuss what steroids are how they work and what they can do to your body the good and the bad like can they really cause a guy's testicles to shrink a woman to grow hair in funny places and are there any more serious long-term Health consequences associated with steroid use we have a lot of cool things to discuss so let's do this so first what are steroids well there are many different types of steroids the steroids we are referring to in this video are often called anabolic steroids or androgenic steroids and sometimes even called anabolic androgenic steroids but I'll refer to them as androgenic steroids from here on out these are different than say like prednisone which is an anti-inflammatory steroid that you may have heard about that is used to treat inflammatory conditions but these androgenic steroids that we are focusing on are used to increase muscular size and athletic performance and these are synthetic variations of the main male Androgen testosterone and an androgen is a hormone that promotes the development of masculine characteristics and again testosterone being the primary Ary Androgen produced in males females do produce some testosterone in the ovaries and even in the adrenal gland specifically the outer portion of the adrenal gland called the adrenal cortex however the overall production is much less than in males and since these androgenic steroids are synthetic variations of testosterone let me quickly explain the process of testosterone production because this will help us to have an even better understanding of how the steroids work and even help us to understand some of the side effects and this actually starts in the brain in this structure at the Central core of the brain referred to as the hypothalamus now we seem to talk a lot about the hypothalamus in our videos lately but regardless just to orient you this is A sagittal cut so a cut through the midline here and if you were to go straight back like right between your eyebrows you'd run into this hypothalamus here now the hypothalamus will secrete a hormone called gonadotropin releasing hormone and just take a moment to think about that name gonadotropin gonad implies that it is going to have an effect on the gonads the testes are the over and tropins are just hormones that cause other hormones to be released which we're going to see in just a second so the hypothalamus releases this gonadotropin releasing hormone and it actually releases it into these tiny blood vessels that travel from the hypothalmus directly to this structure here called the pituitary gland specifically the anterior portion of the pituitary gland and these blood vessels are referred to as the hypophysial portal veins hypothesis is just another name for the pituitary gland hence the name hypothal portal veins so now this gonadotropin releasing hormone that came from the hypothalamus is in the pituitary gland and this activates certain cells within the anterior pituitary to secrete two other hormones called follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone so now you can see this connection of how the gonadotropin releasing hormone caused other hormones to be released and we're mostly going to focus on the luteinizing hormone for now and come back to the follicle stimulating hormone in just a little bit but this luteinizing hormone is released from the pituitary gland into the bloodstream and it will eventually travel to the testes and when it gets to the testes it causes these cells in the testes called liic cells to secrete testosterone into the bloodstream so that may have felt like there were quite a few steps there but let's just step back and summarize and simplify this a little bit the hypothalamus secretes gonadotropin releasing hormone which tells the pituitary to release luteinizing hormone which then just tells the tessis to secrete the testosterone so while we've secreted this testosterone we're all done right well there is one other important point we need to make here we can't just keep secreting testosterone into the bloodstream and allow the levels to just keep getting higher and higher eventually it needs to stop or shut off kind of like if you set your thermostat for your furnace to 70° if it's 65° in your house you want your furnace to turn on until your house gets to 70° but when it gets to 70° you want it to shut off you don't want your furnace to keep secreting in heat indefinitely until your house is all of a sudden 85° just like you don't want the testy to keep secreting testosterone until your body gets too hot with testosterone if you will so think of your hypothalamus as your thermostat with a certain set point when the testy secrete enough testosterone the hypothalamus shuts off that secretion of that gonadotropin releasing hormone which will shut off the secretion of the lutenizing hormone from the pituitary gland and then therefore shut off the secretion of testosterone until it gets too cold or the testosterone levels dip below a certain point this thermostat analogy is referred to as negative feedback and it's how our body regulates many of our hormones and the reason I took the time to explain this is because when someone takes androgenic steroids this can mess up this negative feedback system and can lead to many of the side effects that we see with steroid use so let's talk about how steroids work to improve muscle mass and then of course get into these side effects but real quick I want to take a second to say thank you to the 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getting a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals so if you're interested go to drink a1.com your supply of vitamin D3 plus K2 and five ag1 travel packets with your first purchase and as always we'll include that link and the information in the description below so now let's get into how steroids work and then we'll talk about side effects androgenic steroids work by mimicking the effects of the naturally produced testosterone and they have an anabolic effect or in other words promote anabolism which is a building process maybe you've heard people talk about and compare anabolism versus catabolism not canni olism catabolism but catabolism is the breakdown of complex molecules whereas anabolism is the building up of complex molecules and in the case of steroids they have an anabolic effect by turning on certain genes within the muscle fibers that increase protein synthesis thereby causing the muscle fibers to utilize amino acids to build more proteins and this will enhance overall muscle growth and even potentially enhance physical performance and users of anabolic steroids often start seeing results relatively quickly again the obvious result being an increase in muscle mass but they also often start to see reduction in fat levels and even possibly faster recovery times but these steroids don't just affect muscle fat and Recovery they are after all mimicking testosterone so they also cause other androgenic or masculinizing effects that we need to discuss and something that is important to note as we get into this part of the discussion is that in the case of taking androgenic steroids we aren't talking about physiologic of androgens here we're talking about Supra physiologic levels what I mean by that is let's say we have a patient that is hypogonadal or has some sort of condition where they are not producing the normal amount of testosterone and so they choose to do testosterone replacement therapy or some other androgenic steroid therapy to get them to normal levels so that they can function properly this is a lot different than say a male that already has normal testosterone and then on top of that adds androgenic steroids so that is androgens are now at above normal or super physiologic levels and you could even apply this to a female doing this so in these super physiologic cases where we are going beyond the normal levels it's no wonder that we have side effects and even potentially dangerous consequences so let's start with some of the more often talked about side effects or you can kind of think of these as the stereotypical side effects of steroids with females using steroids you can get increased acne irregular periods and this overall virilization viralization ation is the development of male physical characteristics such as a deeper voice catism which is hair growth in the more typical male pattern such as the growth of facial hair and it can also cause clitoral megal which is enlargement of the Claris males can also get increases in acne with steroid use as well as a potential increased risk of prostate cancer and premature closure of growth plates if steroids are taken before puberty or growth is completed male use of steroids can also cause gynecomastia which is the abnormal growth of breast tissue in males but you might think wait a minute isn't testosterone or something that mimics testosterone supposed to cause more of the masculine characteristics well yes for the most part but what happens is that with these steroid levels being in excess or at Super physiologic levels some of that excess can get converted to estrogen by a certain enzyme complex and once converted to estrogen that extra estrogen can now circulate throughout the body and lead to the development of breast tissue isue but this only occurs with certain types of androgenic steroids because not all of them can be converted to estrogen and one of the most common side effects of steroids that I heard a lot about when I was in high school and even in college was steroids can make the testy strink or what is known as testicular atrophy and what I heard was true androgenic steroids can lead to testicular atrophy and of course we have to talk about why remember that thermostat analogy and how the body normally regulates testosterone levels with the hypothalmus shutting down the release of gonadotropin releasing hormone once testosterone levels got up to a certain point so think about when a synthetic version of testosterone is introduced to the body the hypothalamus thinks oh we've got plenty of this we've got all this excess testosterone so we don't need any more of it and stops releasing that gonadotropin releasing hormone which then makes it so the pituitary gland won't release leutinizing hormone which then means lutenizing hormone won't tell the tested to produce the testosterone and over time time without sufficient lutenizing hormone stimulating the testes the testes have an overall reduction in function with decreased testosterone production and consequently the testes will shrink in size the testes will also stop producing as much sperm with steroid use because if you remember I mentioned that when the hypothalmus released that gonadotropin releasing hormone there it is again this caused the anterior pituitary to not only release lutenizing hormone but also to release follicle stimulating hormone follicle stimulating hormone causes different cells in the testes to produce sperm so same idea if you have high levels of synthetic steroids in your body shutting off secretion of gonadotropin releasing hormone you not only shut off release of lutenizing hormone but also shut off the release of follicle stimulating hormone decreasing the sperm count this also explains why it can mess with the menstrual cycle in females because normally follicle stimulating hormone in females causes monthly development of ovarian follicles that contain the the eggs and luteinizing hormone causes ovulation so the next question might be can these adverse effects be reversed for males they are often very curious about the testes recovering their function and size and yes for most the testes can recover much if not all of their original function and size after discontinuation of steroids but how long and if they will fully recover depends on the person's age genetics and obviously how much and how long they were using the androgenic steroids for for femal menstrual function can also return to normal but the voice changes are usually permanent it is also important to mention some other potential side effects of steroid use steroid use could increase the risk of certain cardiovascular conditions and I say could because there are still some uncertainty on the direct causality versus association with some of these potential risks but there is some evidence that suggests it could increase the risk of coronary artery disease possibly due to certain oral androgenic steroids having the ability to lower HDL cholesterol and raise LDL cholesterol it can also result in rytes which is an increase in the number of red blood cells sometimes that can be to a Sor degree and may even also be linked to increases in blood pressure there can also be neuros psychiatric side effects which include major mood disorders and aggressive behavior but not all people taking steroids exhibit these symptoms and some of the more random side effects tendon ruptures like biceps and tricep tendon ruptures appear to be more likely in weightlifters that use androgenic steroids and those that inject the steroids can be more at risk for infections at the actual sight of injection and more at risk for systemic infections like Hepatitis B hepatitis C and HIV if they were to share needles so hopefully you learned some cool information about how steroids work and some of the potential side effects and if you Lov jumping from the hypothalamus to the pituitary to the testes and the ovaries and you just like learning about hormones in the endocrine system in general we've got an old school endocrine video that I'll link over here old school because I looked a bit different and so did the lab so if you're interested be sure to check that out also if you're interested in ag1 we've got that link in the description below and thank you so much for supporting our Channel I'll catch some of you down in the comments and if not I'll see you in the next video