A study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology has suggested a link between kidney disease and long term steroid use. Body builders who utilize steroid for the purposes of increased training performance seem to be the population at risk. The body builders were confirmed to develop a type of kidney disease known as focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis also known as FSGS. Although categorized as scarring of the kidney and known to occur as a final pathway of injury in numerous
(image from wikipedia.org)
other glomerular diseases FSGS can also be its own unique disease in which case it can be very difficult to treat. Requiring in most cases high doses of …..steroids, although of a different variety than those used in the body builders.
FSGS has also been implicated in obesity related kidney disease and the metabolic syndrome. In these cases the natural increase in size of the filtration apparatus of the kidney that occurs because of increased body mass goes awry and leads eventually to scarring of the filter known as the glomerulus.
If anabolic steroid use is truly associated with FSGS then we would expect to see patients who are larger having the worst cases, which seems to be the case in this study.
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