Underground Steroid Handbook 2

Now that the steroid is at the nucleus, let's look at the actual message, the directions it
gives the muscle cell. Steroids deliver many messages, and not only to muscle cells.
There are steroid receptors in the sebaceous glands, skin, hair follicles, red blood cells,
the brain; I'll touch on all these but now let's concentrate on two primary messages given
to the muscle cells. One is to increase protein synthesis, and this is generally thought to
be the number one function of anabolic steroids. Increasing protein synthesis allows the
muscle to recuperate faster, and grow bigger. Steroids also increase creatine phosphate
synthesis in the muscle. For a muscle cell to make mechanical energy, it needs a fuel
and the final end product fuel for a muscle is ATP, adenosine tri-phosphate. ATP
becomes reduced to ADIR and this basic process is what makes muscle move. Only the
process is not so basic.
There are so many metabolic pathways and loops and cycles that finally turn the food
you eat into ATP, it's mind boggling. To avoid getting into a quagmire, I'm just going to
tell you that creatine phosphate is an energy buffer that helps replenish ATP. Short and
sweet: high creatine phosphate levels directly relate to high ATP levels and the more
creatine phosphate you can synthesize the stronger (but not necessarily bigger) the
muscle is. Steroids make other things happen in the muscle. Muscle cells store
carbohydrate in the form of a starch called glycogen. Steroids not only increase
glycogen storage in the cell, they increase the accompanying fluid storage as well. Both
these factors increase muscle strength and size. Steroids allow the muscle to take up
nutrients, mostly glucose, but also amino acids without as much dependence on the
hormone insulin. Less insulin needed is less insulin secreted, and as insulin can also
drive glucose into a fat cell where it transforms to glycerol and finally to triglyceride, the
end result is a bigger fat cell. So, the less insulin the better. By the way, insulin is
considered a very anabolic hormone, it just also can make you fat.
Once the steroid has entered the nucleus and transferred its data, it is released back
into circulation and can be reused until it metabolizes into other compounds, including
other (very weak) steroids that are ultimately excreted in the urine. Some steroids
convert to other active steroids before they attach themselves to the steroid receptor
sites. Testosterone converts to a variant called Dihydrolestosterone. DHT has a higher
affinity to steroid receptor sites than regular testosterone, and also binds easily to
receptors in the sebaceous glands and hair follicles. Steroids other than testosterone
also can convert to DHT. There is still scientific debate over the possibility that DHT is
more anabolic than regular testosterone.
Steroids can also convert to estrogen. The conversion process is called aromatization.
The estrogen molecule is very similar in structure to testosterone so the aromatization
process is not as bizarre as it first appears. Aromatization is on the list of undesirable
side effects that steroids have, which I will go into detail on later. The other metabolites
of steroids are not as active on the metabolism as either DHT or estrogen. Some are
weakly anabolic and are excreted out of the body in a matter of days. Some have no
activity but may stay in the body for months. The first steroid made in America was a
weakly anabolic metabolite of testosterone derived from concentrating gallons of dog
urine into what I imagine to be an absolutely disgusting injection given to lab animals in
the 1930's.
Testosterone today is derived from a South American plant, Mexican Sasparilla, so I
guess if you're a vegetarian steroids are now okay. I've thrown a lot of details at you in
Copyright © 1989 by Daniel Duchaine Copyright © 2006 by QFAC, Inc. All Rights Reserved.