NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/med/21244

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-19 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!ncar!hsdndev!binoc.bih.harvard.edu!rind
From: [e-mail] (David Rind)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Steroids for Cancer Patients?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:37:16 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston Mass., USA
Lines: 25

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Max J. Rochlin) writes:
>Well, steroids are immuno-supressive.  This means that the possibility
>of getting sick is greater.  Other side effects include weight gain,
>short temper, just to name a few.  It's also been suggested that steroids
>we a major contributing factor to the brain cancer and subsequent death
>of L. Alzado (sp?) the ex-football player.

This is the confusion between different classes of steroids sprouting
up again.  The steroids that the original poster was asking about
were corticosteroids (like prednisone or hydrocortisone).  In that
case the steroids were presumably being used to decrease swelling
around a tumor that was impinging on the spinal cord.  Such steroids
can indeed suppress the immune system and can have a number of
serious short and long term side-effects.

Anabolic steroids (like testosterone) are the ones used by athletes
(such as Lyle Alzado) to try to increase muscle mass/strength.  They
are the ones that people discuss as causing increased aggression
(corticosteroids can make people euphoric and rarely psychotic, but
I doubt that's what Mr. Rochlin was thinking of).  Although Lyle
Alzado apparently believed that anabolic steroids caused his brain
tumor, I don't know of any evidence suggesting such an association.
--
David Rind
[e-mail]