When talking about creatine as a possible solution to muscular dystrophy caused a stir, questions led to the viability of steroids as a means to solve the disease in question. Accounts on muscular dystrophy as a degenerative disease date back to 1830, through Charles Bell’s writings describing a particular illness that appears to have caused progressive weakness in boys. Half a decade later, a scientist reported on two brothers who have developed generally, weakness, sustained muscle damage and the replacement of the damaged muscle tissue with fat and connective tissue.
Muscular dystrophy today generally refers to a group of hereditary muscle diseases, the cause of which points to genetics, resulting to progressive muscle weakness. This particular disease is exhibited by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, muscle protein defects, and an alarming rate of muscle degeneration starting with the death of muscle cells and tissues.

A hundred diseases exhibit similar characteristics and are classified as muscular dystrophy, most of which are multi-system disorder which manifests in a wide array of bodily systems and organs such as the heart, gastro-intestinal and nervous system, the endocrine glands and other organs.

Symptoms that may signal muscular dystrophy includes progressive muscular wasting, poor balance as indicated by frequent bumps and falls, difficulty, limited range in movement and waddling gait. Other signs are calf pain, muscle contractures, respiratory difficulties, and drooping eyelids. Some types of muscular dystrophy affect the nervous system, particularly the heart leading to cardiomyopathy or arrhythmias.

Creatine, a performance–enhancing supplement popular among weightlifters and sprinters to improve athletic performance, is gaining acclaim among teens. News of muscular dystrophy patients taking creatine reported increase in muscle strength.

Two studies have bolstered the benefits of creatine use as supplement to cure neuromuscular disorders. Recent experiments with mice demonstrated that creatine is twice as effective as a prescription drug for the extension of the life span of the test subjects with degenerative neural disease known as amyotropic lateral sclerosis. It was argued that the neuroprotective benefits of the substance in the mice was due to the increased energy supplied to the wasting nerve cells.In another such study, creatine was shown to gradually increase the strength of people who have neuromuscular disease. Its benefits are also being explored for the treatment or neuro-muscular and other degenerative disorders.

On the other hand, anabolic steroids are being investigated by the medical practitioners, with varying results. Steroid substances find their popular use in sports and recreation, particularly attributed to its muscle building prowess. Decades back, anabolic steroids are used in bone marrow stimulation, a procedure that is required for the therapy for anemia.

Pediatric endocrinologists use steroids to treat children that exhibit growth failure. Extreme delay of puberty is treated by inducing puberty by androgens such as testosterone and results showed increased height, weight and lean muscle after treatment.

Chronic wasting conditions in the form of cancer and AIDS called for therapy utilizing steroids generally for the purpose of stimulation of appetite and preservation and sustaining the increase of muscle mass in the body.

Anabolic steroids work on building body mass by increasing protein production by the body, and reducing muscle breakdown caused by cortisol, It was thought that this reduction in muscle breakdown boils down to the steroid hormones preventing the action of glucocorticoids, believed to promote breakdown of muscles. Anabolic steroids also limit the number of cells that develop to be fat storage cells, by favoring cell development into muscle cells in a process called differentiation.

The question of whether steroids as supplement can benefit people with muscular dystrophy remains relevant with the demand in the cure. Steroids continue to be promising as a therapy as investigation is underway to explore synthetic hormones that would have lesser side effects, and in a number of other diseases as well. Neuromuscular and neuron degenerative diseases are among those that stand to get possible cure with steroids.

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