Calcitriol, a form of vitamin D synthesized within the body, can possibly minimize growth-factor-induced HASM proliferation in cells in asthmatic as well as non-asthmatic people.

This finding was reported by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania who also noted that Vitamin D can slow down the progressive decline in breathing ability experienced in asthmatic patients due to human airway smooth muscle (HASM) proliferation.

From Sciencedaily.com:

With its anti-inflammatory qualities and its ability to inhibit smooth muscle proliferation, Dr. Damera said, calcitriol may become an important new therapy, used alone or in combination with already prescribed steroids, for treating steroid-resistant asthma.

Dr. Damera and his colleagues have also conducted experiments to determine the mechanism by which calcitriol retards HASM proliferation. They believe the vitamin works by inhibiting activation of distinct set of proteins responsible for cell-cycle progression.

The investigators have also conducted experiments to determine whether calcitriol, which is currently used to treat psoriasis, could be an effective therapy for COPD. Although preliminary, their data shows that calcitriol appears to reduce pro-inflammatory cytokine secretions in COPD. As with asthma, the researchers believe, calcitriol may also have the added benefit of slowing, if not stopping, the progression of airway remodeling. Others in the field believe calcitriol may also have the potential to inhibit the development and growth of several types of cancer.

A randomized control trial of calcitriol in patients with severe asthma with expectations of trial data in a year’s time is now being planned by the researchers as a part of the University of Pennsylvania’s Airway Biology Initiative.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Dietary supplements that are enriched with steroids pose a great risk for severe health ailments, a fact that was reaffirmed by three recent cases reported to researchers at the Henry Ford Hospital.

These cases have been discussed in detail in the current issue of The Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and were related to patients with liver injury and renal failure.

From Medicalnewstoday.com:

The three cases outlined in the article now bring the total of cases reported in the last year to six.

“Anabolic steroids have long been known to cause liver damage, but what is not widely known is that over-the-counter health food supplements may actually contain these compounds,” says Dr. Gordon. “The buyer of these compounds likely has no idea that he is ingesting these agents, even after reading the small print on the label.”

The U.S. F.D.A. had already issued a warning in relation to over-the-counter sale of bodybuilding supplements enriched with anabolic steroids.

It was remarked by lead author Stuart C. Gordon, M.D., Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Henry Ford Hospital that though the numbers of such cases may be low now but that does not mean that such kind of supplements can be allowed to pose health risks.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Steroid tablets cannot be considered to be an effective form of treatment for offering relief to young children, especially pre-school children, suffering from wheezing induced by virus.

The finding was revealed by a research that involved medical experts at The University of Nottingham. Leading researchers from the universities of Nottingham, Leicester and Bart’s in London were at the center of a leading study to ascertain if steroids are useful for relieving symptoms of wheezing in children under the age of five.

From News-Medical.Net:

There has been ongoing controversy in the medical community regarding how to best treat pre-school children who are admitted to hospital with severe wheezing. Steroids remain an important treatment for children with asthma but pre-school children with viral-induced wheeze, where symptoms are only associated with colds or flu and do not persist when the child is not infected with a virus, have also been treated with steroids in the past. This trial, funded by Asthma UK and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, definitively shows that steroid tablets do not help these children.

The research was carried out by Dr Alan Smyth, Associate Professor and Reader in Child Health, and Terence Stephenson, Professor of Child Health, at The University of Nottingham in collaboration with Dr Monica Lakhanpaul, Senior Lecturer from the University of Leicester and Consultant Paediatrician in Children’s Community Health Service for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and Professor Jonathan Grigg of Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Dr Mike Thomas, Chief Medical Advisor for Asthma UK, welcoming the study remarked that the study results offer crucial implications for members of the medical community.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Certain drugs that are presently used as treatment options for cancer can prove effective when it comes to minimizing the tissue inflammation level.

This finding was disclosed by scientists at the University of Edinburgh as part of a study that was published in Nature Medicine journal.

From News-Medical.Net:

Professor Chris Haslett, Head of the Queen’s Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh, expects the study to lead to trials of these drugs in human inflammatory diseases. Professors Adriano Rossi and Haslett, who have led this new study with other colleagues from the QMRI, said: “This study offers new hope for patients with severe inflammatory diseases. Specific treatment for such conditions is poor, and the use of steroids is fraught with potential difficulties. We have adopted a different strategy by using non-biological treatments, but this study needs urgently to be translated into trials and we are now seeking major funding to research further how these drugs work.”

Lab tests have suggested that some CDK inhibitors, like Roscovitine, can be effective treatment options for relieving pain and providing relief to patients with lung and joint diseases by reducing the inflammation level in models of rheumatoid arthritis and the fatal ailment called fibrosing alveolitis.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

There is no benefit of steroid administration for young children suffering with bronchiolitis, a common viral lower respiratory infection in infants, as far as preventing hospitalization or improving respiratory symptoms are concerned.

The findings by Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) are believed to provide crucial insights for guiding doctors for treating one of the most common causes of infant hospitalization.

From News-Medical.Net:

The study compared hospitalization rates for 600 children between the ages of 2 months and 12 months who visited emergency rooms with moderate-to-severe bronchiolitis. Patients were treated with either a dose of dexamethasone (a glucocorticoid form of steroid medication) or a placebo and evaluated after one hour, and again at four hours. The hospital admission rate for both groups was identical at nearly 40 percent. Both groups improved during treatment, but the placebo group did as well as the group treated with active medication. The study was conducted in the emergency departments at 20 hospitals across the United States between November and April during a three-year period. Bronchiolitis is most common during the winter months.

“We learned that a commonly used treatment doesn’t work,” said Howard M. Corneli, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah and the principal investigator on the study. “Now that we’ve demonstrated glucocorticoids aren’t effective in treating bronchiolitis, we can focus our efforts on finding better treatments and better preventive strategies.”

Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, chair of the PECARN network’s steering committee, and the senior investigator of the study, suggested that the effectiveness of a research network like PECARN for resolving difficult-to-answer questions is proven by studies like this.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Even though steroid treatment is one of the most commonly recommended treatment options for asthma, yet bodies of some children may show no response to such treatment. This finding was disclosed by a new study presented at the American Thoracic Society.

It was suggested that some children may respond well while others may achieve no benefit at all with steroids, as per Gregory Sawicki, M.D. of Children’s Hospital in Boston.

From News-Medical.Net:

“The majority of children with mild asthma are less likely to have symptoms as they get older and may not need to be on daily steroids,” Dr. Sawicki said. “The flip side is that if a child has poor asthma control, the parents and doctor need to make sure the child is adhering to their inhaled steroid treatment. But variation in response to inhaled steroids, as other medications, is well described.”

The data comes from the Child Asthma Management Program Continuation Study (CAMPCS), one of the largest groups of children with mild to moderate asthma in the nation who have been followed over 10 years. “This study gives us a good sense of real-world practice in asthma management,” Dr. Sawicki says. “The children’s care is not directed by anyone in the study; it’s an observation of what goes on when the children’s care is directed by their own physicians.”

It was further noted by Sawicki that asthma control cannot be managed even if higher doses of steroids were administered to non-responsive children, much like all adult asthmatic patients do not derive benefit from steroids.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions

The game of baseball has been kept under dark clouds after Mark McGwire made a belated confession of steroid use amidst crocodile tears and disclaimers. But Bud Selig thinks that the baseball steroid era is now over, a fact suggested by test results.

Though McGwire’s confession was not able to impress the die-hard baseball fans, it saved officials and team members by putting an end to the baseball’s era of performance-enhancing drugs to offer a new start for the game.

From Bostonherald.com:

That’s pretty much what Bud Selig said after the man who wouldn’t talk about the past to Congress finally spoke about it to Bob Costas. On the day of McGwire’s mea culpa, Selig said in a statement that in 2010, the use of steroids and amphetamines in baseball is “virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown.”

Two things: Either the commissioner of Major League Baseball pays no attention to the nonstop cat-and-mouse game still taking place between the International Olympic Committee and its world-class athletes, or he’s back to his old car-selling ways again.

If he ever really left them.

Otherwise, he would not have followed with this: “The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.”

The steroid era might be a thing of the past in baseball. But performance-enhancing drugs are an ever-evolving industry, as the IOC and its testing agents long ago discovered. Simply stated, the cycle goes as follows: You design a testing program to detect all known performance-enhancing drugs. They design a new drug that escapes that detection. After a while, you get wise, develop even more encompassing detection. They take your test, and build a new PED that avoids that detection.

Selig remarked that the use of steroids and amphetamines is no more prevalent in the world of baseball.

Posted in Steroids | No Comments/Questions