THURSDAY, Feb. 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Androstenedione is one of those health supplements that was peddled to athletes for several years as a fast route to bulging muscular tissues and high testosterone degrees, but it carries some grave dangers.
Also regarded as “andro,” the nutritional health supplement was at the time touted to increase athletic general performance by stimulating muscle mass growth and boosting testosterone ranges. But as soon as it enters the body, it acts like a steroid and can pose very similar well being threats.
In October 2004, President George Bush signed the Anabolic Steroid Management Act, which reclassified androstenedione from a complement to an anabolic steroid, making it and other steroid-primarily based medicine a controlled compound. They are at this time banned in sports.
This was due to the fact a modest selection of scientific studies of androstenedione led the U.S. Food stuff and Drug Administration to imagine that its use may improve the chance of major wellness problems because of its conversion in the body to the hormones testosterone and a unique form of estrogen.
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Though over-the-counter androstenedione supplements are now banned, physicians can continue to prescribe it for professional medical reasons.
In accordance to a review revealed on the internet lately in the journal Molecules, medical doctors can give androstenedione photographs for preventing or treating selected continual diseases.
Androstenedione’s hazards
But the supplement is joined to various facet effects.
According to the Mayo Clinic, long-phrase use of androstenedione nutritional supplements by guys can outcome in testicular atrophy, impotence and the advancement of female attributes this kind of as breast enlargement.
Women who use these goods may perhaps establish male properties these kinds of as male pattern baldness, deepening of the voice, increased facial hair and enlargement of the clitoris. Girls can also acquire irregular menstrual cycles, irregular bleeding and blood clots. Androstenedione can also enhance the chance of breast cancer and endometrial cancer.
Between kids and teenagers, androstenedione can place them at possibility for the similar hormonal outcomes as adults, as properly as for early onset of puberty and untimely cessation of development.
Andro dietary supplements can also damage the coronary heart and blood vessels in anyone who usually takes it, increasing the possibility for coronary heart assaults and strokes, in accordance to the Mayo Clinic.
Not only can these dietary supplements result in undesired facet effects: They also can interact dangerously with a amount of other medicines.
In accordance to Drug Financial institution, concentrations of androstenedione can enhance when taken with the head lice drug abametapir or reduce when made use of with the heart drug amiodarone.
Other interactions involve enhanced concentrations of androstenedione in the presence of the prostate cancer drug apalutamide and reduced concentrations when utilised with aprepitant, which is utilized to avert nausea from chemotherapy.
The drug HIV drug atazanavir can also improve the focus of androstenedione, as can the erectile dysfunction drug avanafil (Stendra).
When androstenedione is used together with the asthma drug beclomethasone dipropionate, intense edema could take place. That is also the case with the arthritis drug betamethasone.
Also, the capability to metabolize androstenedione can be affected when the drug berotralstat is made use of. Berotralstat is utilized to avert angioedema, a hereditary inflammation of the confront, in accordance to Drug Lender.
“Although andro items might appear to be to have quick-time period rewards, the science demonstrates that these identical attributes create actual and major well being pitfalls,” then-Fda Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan said when the supplements ended up initially banned.
“When the solutions are advertised to athletes, they have the prospective to get into the arms of our impressionable youth who may perhaps consider these merchandise will support their growth,” McClellan mentioned. “Anybody who normally takes these goods in ample quantities to make muscle mass or increase functionality is putting himself or herself at possibility for major very long-time period and perhaps irreversible well being implications.”