What is a Steroid

Author: Tom Venuto

Steroids are small molecules which are synthesized in 3 places in the human body. The first and smallest amount in the pituitary gland, second in the Adrenal cortex and the third and highest amount in the testicles in men and the ovaries in women. The average male produces about 14 milligrams of test per day and the average female produces about 1-2 milligrams of Test per day. They all have a 17 carbon nucleus i.e. and are known to chemists as cyclopentanoperhydrophenanthrenes. That’s a five dollar word for a simple molecule but is a way of classifying a group of compounds for chemists and pharmaceutical scientists. There are seven different kinds manufactured in the human body i.e. Bile acids, glucocorticoids, sex hormones, sapogenins, sterols (as a matter of fact Cholesterol, a sterol, is the steroid from which all other steroids are derived) etc. but the ones we hear most often talked about is the sex hormones.

Estrogen is the female hormone and Testosterone is the male hormone and is also known as an androgen. Androgens bring on the secondary sexual characteristics. Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone and cause either anabolism (tissue building) or catabolism (tissue degrading). You might ask why would we want to degrade tissue? Those cortisone shots you get for tendinitis are actually getting rid of the inflamation by tearing down the collagen in your tendons. In synthesizing anabolic steroids organic chemists try to put certain atomic groups around the steroid nucleus which make them more anabolic and less androgenic. Some problems with the more androgenic steroids are hirsutism (excessive growth of hair-in places you don’t want-on your face ladies or on your back guys), thickening of the vocal cords, hair loss in men, edema (water retention), high cholesterol levels-so much so its generally in the heart attack range, a cessation of menstruation in women, loss of sperm count in men and increased sex drive in both men and women!

Since anabolic steroids cause nitrogen retention where nitrogen is the basic constituent of protein this means we can build more muscle. As a matter of fact one of the side effects of men who use testosterone as a male birth control pill notice more lean muscle mass. As another aside some men who are prone to male pattern baldness have noticed a cessation of hair loss while taking anabolic steroids. I personally had hair loss in the days long past when I took anabolics.

History of Steroids

About 2000 years ago when the Roman empire was in its heyday there were some “doctors” who would evaporate urine to dryness and use the powdered residue to give as an elixir to their patients. It just so happens that high levels of testosterone and estrogens, and their biotransformation products, were present in the urine and so these patients would experience some of the positive and negative effects of these steroids. Later Adolf Winhaus-the father of modern steroid chemistry- synthesized the first used medicinally. He received the 1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. David et.al. was the first to isolate testosterone in 1935. In World War II German soldiers were given testosterone injections to make them more aggressive in combat. Dr. John Ziegler was one of the first to bring these new synthesized steroids to the US and the rest is history.

One of Paul D. Dodson’s wonderful little anecdotes

In 1949 Phillip Russell Marker sold everything he owned and moved to Mexico to buy 160,000 lbs of Mexican yams. He had read about the contraceptive effect that the indians in the area were getting from the sapogenins (another steroid) in the yams. He started Syntex Laboratories in Mexico city-now a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley which does billions in sales-and after hiring Carl Djerassi (the famous Mass Spectroscopist)as an organic chemist to add some atomic groups around the steroid ring came up with the first birth control pills. He quit the company after 3 years after a falling out with some fellow employees and fell into obscurity.

In next month's article I will explain how analytical chemists test for anabolic steroids in urine, blood, meat and other matrices.