The most common controversy of the Olympics is testosterone and its derivatives. Tetrahydrogestrinone, THG or “The Clear”, is an anabolic androgenic steroid derivative of testosterone that was provided to a handful of 2004 Athens Olympians by their coach. Interestingly, Patrick Arnold, the chemist credited with developing the designer steroid THG, was an amateur bodybuilder, suggesting his original motivation.
In September, the morning after a homecoming party and a long distance phone call made while drunk to an estranged best friend who gives excellent advice, I signed up for an online digital painting class offered by this man. Bobby Chiu is an incredibly skilled digital artist whose work I follow via cgsociety.com, an online forum for computer graphics artists. (Specifically, see http://digital-bobert.cgsociety.org/gallery/.) Considering the going rate of art classes from the local community center it was a splurge, but the quality of instruction did make it worth it. The flexing bodybuilder vide infra was my first assignment, "visualizing through darkness". I was provided a pencil line drawing, and taught by Bobby how to paint over it in Photoshop using only a hard-edged, round brush. At the time, I was pleased as punch with my muscle-head.
The muscle growth and increase fat-free mass achieved through anabolic steroid use is endorsed not only by dirty track coaches, but also in some cases by the medical community. Since the early 1990’s, anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) have played a little mentioned, but vital role in offsetting the lean body mass wasting in HIV/AIDs, cancer [1], and severe burn patients [2], when it was discovered that muscle erosion in those conditions was associated with increased mortality rates [3].
Testosterone (T) exerts its effects by binding with high affinity to the androgen receptor (AR), inducing a conformational change of the entire ligand binding domain, compacting it. Several key hydrogen bonding interactions between T and the AR were identified by X-ray crystallography [5] (image made in PyMOL):
When switched on by testosterone, the receptor moves to associate with testosterone responsive DNA sequences, recruits transcription machinery and increases expression of those genes [4]. After puberty, there is more circulating T than androgen receptors capable of binding it [6]. The surplus T serves to reduce the catabolic activity (breakdown of fats, lipids, protein and sugars into their fundamental units) of glucocorticoids by displacing them from their receptor. The combined, physiological results are an increase in muscle size, strength and fat-free mass [6], among other things that can be read about elsewhere [7].
To conlude, I’m greatly anticipating a clean, show of Canadian strength in the 2010 Winter Olympics, especially between the pipes. Ra Ra!
References
- Basaria, S., J. T. Wahlstrom, et al. (2001). "Anabolic-androgenic steroid therapy in the treatment of chronic diseases." Journal Of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 86(11): 5108-5117.
- Hart, D. W., S. E. Wolf, et al. (2001). "Anabolic effects of oxandrolone after severe burn." Annals Of Surgery 233(4): 556-564.
- Kotler, D. P., A. R. Tierney, et al. (1989). "Magnitude of body-cell-mass depletion and the timing of death from wasting in AIDS." Am J Clin Nutr 50(3): 444-447.
- Tsai, M. J. and B. W. Omalley (1994). "MOLECULAR MECHANISMS OF ACTION OF STEROID/THYROID RECEPTOR SUPERFAMILY MEMBERS." Annual Review Of Biochemistry 63: 451-486.
- Askew, E. B., R. T. Gampe, et al. (2007). "Modulation of androgen receptor activation function 2 by testosterone and dihydrotestosterone." Journal of Biological Chemistry 282(35): 25801-25816.
- Wu, F. C. W. (1997). "Endocrine aspects of anabolic steroids." Clinical Chemistry 43(7): 1289-1292.
- Brower, K. (2002). "Anabolic steroid abuse and dependence." 1-11.
