HGH and STEROIDS: What's the difference??????

[Michael.Felli]

(According to Adam Pallone)...

When a performance-enhancing drug (PED) discussion comes up in the news, steroids and HGH are thrown around all the time making it seem like they are synonymous. However, I recently sat down with an expert on the matter, Quinnipiac baseball athletic trainer Adam Pallone, who clearly explained the difference. And it is a big one.

Anything that enhances performance is classified as an ergogenic aid, steroids would be one example. ...Steroids are the big one, human growth hormone is the other big one. Both of them are two separate categories encompassed under that sports enhancement umbrella.
Pitchers will use [steroids] more for recovery purposes. You’ll see a lot of relievers using it because ‘I have to pitch night after night.’ Sometimes it’s not to up that 90 mph fastball to a 95; sometimes it’s just to be able to throw again tomorrow.

For hitters, being able to react to a 95 mph pitch, that’s a split second thing. Being big and stocky and having large muscles doesn’t make you faster to your reaction, it makes you slower. The tradeoff is, you still gotta be able to hit the pitch 400 ft, 500 ft. And that’s where I think the big oversight of all of this is – human growth hormone.

The bottom line is, steroids make you stronger and slower, but HGH improves your hand-eye coordination and eye sight, which allow you to make better contact with the ball.

Pallone graduated in 2004 from Central Connecticut State University with a degree in athletic training—a highly-touted program at CCSU.

http://www.hgh.org/Steroids-Vs-Human-Growth-Hormone.html

 

[Cletus11]

Steroids and HGH are types of PED's. PED is the overarching name giving to any performancing enhancing drugs. Steroids is also used in replacement of HGH like people call diapers Pampers or tissues Kleenex because steroids were really the first PED.

 

[The Spin Meister]

Steroids are a large class of carbon ring based chemicals. In animals, including humans, they are very active biologically, and used in controlling various body metabolisms as well as various structural uses. Estrogen is a steroid like butane is a hydrocarbon.

HGH is not a steroid as it is amino acid based. It stimulates growth, regeneration, and cell reproduction thus its benefit to athletes.

 

[LionJim]

Very educational, but the guy really needs an editor.

 

[lionlurker]

Much of the stuff in there is very simplistic, but without going into a verbose lecture, these two products are very synergistic. In a nutshell, they act together to multiply each other's effects. It's important to remember that the benefits of testosterone use go away once the testosterone is no longer used, while some of the benefits of HGH remain after its usage is stopped. You can still keep the testosterone muscular gains, although it's hard to do that fully, and once they are gone they aren't coming back. HGH size increases, however, stick around. That is one reason why these 50 game suspensions in MLB are bullshit, because even after the fact the HGH benefits don't go away nearly as much, to a very large degree.

On the other hand, how many NFL offensive linemen shrink down 50-60-70 pounds, after they retire? Duh.

 

[Still in State College]

HGH is really popular with doctors that have anti-aging clinics. Hollywood has become a huge proponent/abuser (depending on your view). If done under a doctor's care I am not sure that it is any worse than half the things they give people.

 

[lionlurker]

The same argument was made for anabolic steroids a generation ago, and now the evidence for the harm they cause is significant and irrefutable. It will be a while before we know what the effects are of HGH supplementation, but one thing that we all know is there is no free lunch.

In general, playing with hormones is a bad idea. Testosterone and estrogen supplementation were both thought to be safe in the right hands, and that has turned out not to be the case at all. It's likely that time will reveal that HGH supplementation also has a lot of negative things associated with it. Our cells are simply not designed to be stimulated by hormones all our lives at the same levels as they are during puberty.

 

[mn78psu83]

Much of the stuff in there is very simplistic, but without going into a verbose lecture, these two products are very synergistic. In a nutshell, they act together to multiply each other's effects. It's important to remember that the benefits of testosterone use go away once the testosterone is no longer used, while some of the benefits of HGH remain after its usage is stopped. You can still keep the testosterone muscular gains, although it's hard to do that fully, and once they are gone they aren't coming back. HGH size increases, however, stick around. That is one reason why these 50 game suspensions in MLB are bullshit, because even after the fact the HGH benefits don't go away nearly as much, to a very large degree.

On the other hand, how many NFL offensive linemen shrink down 50-60-70 pounds, after they retire? Duh.

Alan Faneca - during and after the NFL:

 

[Still in State College]

I just compare all of big pharma the same way. The way Dr's give SSNRI's with little to no training or additional mental health plans for their patients. Add to that the fact that the side-effects make it nearly impossible for people to stop using them. Prednisone and NSAID's are all terrible for you.

I guess I just view it as pick your poison if you use strictly an allopathic approach to health.

 

[mn78psu83]

I just compare all of big pharma the same way. The way Dr's give SSNRI's with little to no training or additional mental health plans for their patients. Add to that the fact that the side-effects make it nearly impossible for people to stop using them. Prednisone and NSAID's are all terrible for you.

I guess I just view it as pick your poison if you use strictly an allopathic approach to health.

I do know someone who has a better time of it as a result of taking Prednisone for rheumatoid arthritis. She would not want to live without it at this point. I, on the other hand, had an "interesting" experience with the short term use of Prednisone and would not want to live with it.

 

[lionlurker]

I just compare all of big pharma the same way. The way Dr's give SSNRI's with little to no training or additional mental health plans for their patients. Add to that the fact that the side-effects make it nearly impossible for people to stop using them. Prednisone and NSAID's are all terrible for you.

I guess I just view it as pick your poison if you use strictly an allopathic approach to health.

That's actually an ignorant and simplistic point of view. The SSRI's are very well-known and understood medications, and to say that primary care docs who prescribe them are not educated enough to do so reveals your lack of understanding about how the profession works. You might consider the people who are using these medications, and know that treating patients with mental health disorders is difficult and in a large percentage of cases unsatisfying. Mental health patients are very difficult to deal with, and expectations for their treatment is way too high. Too many people evidently think that every problem should be cheerfully and successfully treated with a pill, and if that doesn't work, well, the doctor is an idiot. We're used to that conclusion being drawn, of course, but the issue is far more sophisticated than that.

Prednisone can be very bad for you, or very good for you, in moderate usage. We all have a very good understanding of what it does.

NSAI's are actually not terrible at all, used properly. Would you be surprised to learn that an overdose of Tylenol, though, is a very easy way to commit suicide? Every drug, no matter how old or how safe, can harm you.

Of course, if your bias is that allopathic medicine is the problem, and that we should all embrace homeopathy instead, then that is a separate issue altogether, and one that I suspect you will not adhere to when faced with a significant medical challenge, because homeopathy is total nonsense that was long ago discredited.

 

[Still in State College]

I have seen people placed on antidepressants by GP's with no health care plan. Just keep taking the pill and if it isn't working we will either raise the dose or try another. I just don't believe that a GP should be prescribing mood altering drugs. Psychiatrists are much better equipped and they can also provide additional counseling for the patients.

There have been a long list of drugs approved as safe and then removed from the market through the years. HGH may or may not prove to be one of them.

I am far from a homeopath but I also do not believe that the answer to every health concern is a simple pill. Whether it is the nature of malpractice insurance or it has just become practice through the years I just think the magic pill is given out too frequently.

 

[lionlurker]

One thing you would know, if you were a physician, is this: there are no psychiatrists out there. Or, at least, not enough. They get paid shit, and no graduating med students go into that field. They just owe too much money to do that.

In Pittsburgh, I can tell you, if you are lucky enough to get an appt with a psychiatrist, he/she is going to give you a pill and kick you out of the office as soon as possible, so that he/she can see his/her next patient. It is a very unfortunate situation. And your follow-up is going to be garbage.

However, it is not necessary to see a psychiatrist for mild depression anyhow. The problem with today's American health care consumer is that they are convinced that they need to see a specialist for everything. In the best of all worlds, we'd have plenty of specialists with lots of office hours available and all of the various insurance plans would accommodate everybody. Instead, we have the exact opposite. And regrettably, Obamacare did not address mental health issues at all, because nobody cares about crazy people, because as a group they have no money to spend or donate. And that is the black and white truth.