Interesting Question for you Experts on Steroids?!
Question: And yes by Steroids i mean Estrogen and Testosterone. So how is it okay for women to be allowed to take birth control pills which are estrogen and Progestogen these are sold over the counter but Testosterone is illegal? Estrogen is a derivative of cholesterol as is testosterone which would bring about the same cardiovascular risk and they would produce the same effects on the liver and kidneys. Other side effects would be different because they have two different effects on the body. Is this a double standard or am i missing something?
Answers: And yes by Steroids i mean Estrogen and Testosterone. So how is it okay for women to be allowed to take birth control pills which are estrogen and Progestogen these are sold over the counter but Testosterone is illegal? Estrogen is a derivative of cholesterol as is testosterone which would bring about the same cardiovascular risk and they would produce the same effects on the liver and kidneys. Other side effects would be different because they have two different effects on the body. Is this a double standard or am i missing something?
1) You can't buy estrogen or progesterone over the counter. You need a prescription.
2) There are also medicinal uses for other types of steriods, cortico-steroids reduce inflammation, in asthma medicines/inhalers, and other uses. Testosterone is also widely prescribed for men of a certain age or who have a medical condition that has caused their testosterone levels to drop too low. Yes, there is HRT for men as well as women.
3) All hormones are, well, not derived from cholesterol, but cholesterol is the base molecule. However, the negative side effects of massive amounts of hormones isn't the cholesterol. The problem is that your entire endocrine system works as a system, nothing is independent, and when you throw part of the equation off, it has has side-effects in other places. For example, I had my thyroid removed last year. Before that time, however, my thyroid, producing a massive amount of T4, was causing my adrenal glands to go crazy which affected my pancreas which made me hypoglycemic. Since my hormones are back in balance now, all is well, but there could be some long-term damage there. It wasn't the cholesterol, it was that this one issue, an over-active thyroid, was screwing up the entire system. Excessive testosterone starts an endocrine chain-reaction which reduces your "good" cholesterol and increases your "bad" cholesterol. Again, the fact that cholesterol is the bases of the hormone is not related.
4) As for why anabolic steroids, which is what I think you are actually talking about here, their side-effects are far more severe than birth control pills, although birth control pills are not without their risks. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that the doses in, say, birth control pills, are much lower than those of you average anabolic steroid user. My birth control pill contains 15 mcg of estrogen. A dose of anabolic steroids can be well over 20-30 times that amount. That's a lot of stress to put on your endocrine system. Also, excessive anabolic steroids have far more negative side-effects than hormonal birth control, as you pointed out, heart damage, liver damage, etc. Just the chemical make-up of the varying hormones. Also, there is the whole cheating thing that we, as a society, have decided we don't like. Look at what's happened to Barry Bonds. Since we associate anabolic steroids with this sort of behavior, there is wide-spread belief that they should only be used for specific medical purposes.
5) So in sum, no, there isn't really a double standard here. Estrogen and progesterone have medical uses as do testosterone and anabolic steroids. They are prescribed by doctors for different purposes depending on the needs of the patient. It is illegal to use any drug for purposes not intended by the doctor, and it is also illegal to obtain a prescription-only drug without a prescription, whether that drug be Xanax or Priolosec or birth control pills or anabolic steroids.
Testosterone is not illegal - using Testosterone (steroids) when your body already makes enough, the side effects can be dangerous, thus making it illegal in that form - Aggression, decrease in sperm count (which causes testicles to shrink), massive muscle growth, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.
My husband takes 1 ml every two weeks of testosterone, which was prescribe by his doctor, for low testosterone levels. Since his body does not make testosterone, he as having alot of problems. No sex drive, no motivation, depression, insomnia at night (but could sleep all day), high blood pressure, high cholesterol (do to not being motivated to exercise, which he used to do alot as a teen - while using a bunch of steroids too, might I add!)
However the case, there are health risks when a woman takes the "pill" - it's explained in the patient information packet. There is kidney failure, blood clots, cancer - just to name a few.
There are a ton of drugs out there that cause ALOT of terrible side effects. Right now, I'm taking Chantix to help me quit smoking - however some of the side effects can be really dangerous to my health! It's a gamble. And as the drug "police" say... "The benefits outweigh the risks" - thus allowing them into the market.
It is a decision a person should make with their doctor... whether or not those side effects REALLY do outweigh the benefits or not.