I know the exact mechanism by which fibrosis develops following damaged muscle cells. The physiological progression isn't what I am uncertain of.
The question posed by "honest" was:
Whereby, the bolded statement targets the notion of fibrosis as it relates to elasticity in the heart of an individual like that of member "honest" where he changed his lifestyle and training habits from younger days which resulted in reversal of his ventricular wall thickness, but is still wondering as to whether or not steroid use will lead to cardiac muscle fibrosis, in light of positive lifestyle changes being undertaken.
I believe he was looking further into this statement by "lord chronos":
Whereas, my punting over of the question involves not the need for an explanation behind the exact mechanism in which muscle fibrosis occurs after prolonged damage, but, moreover, whether or not any peer-reviewed studies or actual clinical cases that can be pegged, show that lord chronos' statements are in fact justifiable.
Again, the pathology behind fibrosis is very much so understood. My punting over to you was meant in order to see if you have read of any actual studies that can be provided to member "honest" and/or seen clinical cases (during CT surgery whereby heart tissue damage can be directly visualized and/or by witnessed autopsies) that suggest that steroid use led to blatant myocardial fibrosis.
Since I haven't read too many studies surrounding the idea of "Steroids leading to permanent myocardial fibrosis and micro scarring", I was wondering if you had any direct input on the matter based on factual material.
"1"
There are a few studies that discuss the other side effects of steroids such as myocardial fibrosis. I dont have all of the them to hand, as I looked at this about ten years ago and posted a few on a few forums and got the same head in the sand denialist mentality from people who didnt want to discuss.
Fineschi V, Riezzo I, Centini F, et al. Sudden cardiac death during anabolic steroid abuse: morphologic and toxicologic findings in two fatal cases of bodybuilders. Int J Legal Med 2007;121:48–53.Includes autopsy details with extensive information on scarring and fibrosis in two bodybuilder deaths.
www.researchgate.net/.../79e4150767bf7374d5.pdfOhio State University reviewwww.anabolicsteroidcalculator.com/resources/articles/.../chapter18.pdfSudden death is the most frightening consequence of AAS use. The etiology of these events likely is multifactorial, with AAS use contributing to the observed pathology. There are case reports of myocardial infarctions [49], stroke, and peripheral vascular obstruction [50] from thrombus that likely are related to the changes in platelet function, inflammation, and cho- lesterol metabolism discussed above. Autopsies of 34 users of AASs found chronic cardiac changes consisting of cardiac hypertrophy, myocardial fibrosis, and coronary artery atheromatous changes in 12 victims, although these were believed to contribute to the deaths of only 2 victims [48].
Many sudden death events among AAS users have been due to ischemia secondary to coronary artery disease; however, there is a report of ventric- ular tachycardia during exercise testing of an AAS user who had myocardial fibrosis on biopsy [51]. Other case reports of sudden death demonstrate diffuse, patchy fibrotic changes in the myocardium of AAS users without coronary artery atherosclerosis [47]. The presence of scar or infiltrative pro- cesses is commonly believed to be a cause for arrhythmia. The exact cause of sudden death in AAS users is unclear but likely is due to ischemia or arrhythmia.
Cause and manner of death among users of anabolic androgenic steroids.Thiblin I, Lindquist O, Rajs J.
Source
Department of Forensic Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
http://www.sudmed.ru/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=4067Myocardial hypertrophy or other chronic myocardial lesions,
i.e., diffuse or patchy myocardial fibrosis, and myocardial steato-
sis, were noticed in 12 of 25 microscopically investigated cases.
Androgen Abuse and Increased Cardiac Risk John P. Higgins, MD, MPhil, Alireza Heshmat, MD, Christopher L. Higgins, BHMS http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/775869_2Myocardial Histologic Changes
A 2005 study reported two cases of sudden cardiac death in young male athletes related to AAS abuse.[14]
Both cases involved healthy individuals without any history of coronary artery disease (CAD) and no evidence of significant abnormality in arterial microscopic examination. Autopsy of both hearts showed focal myocardial fibrosis suggestive of prior myocardial injury. In a study of a sudden unexpected death in a female fitness athlete using steroids and ephedrine, the only pathological finding was a few small foci of granulation tissue, which was interpreted as evidence of earlier myocardial necrosis.[15]
Sudden cardiac arrhythmia resulting from inflammatory process and myocardial fibrosis was suggested to be the cause of death in these cases. Other researchers have reported sudden cardiac deaths related to steroids that also showed myocardial fibrosis in the absence of CADReduced Cardiac Function
An echocardiographic study of 47 strength-training individuals (46 male subjects), 28 of whom were regular AAS users, revealed a lower systolic function in AAS users versus nonusers, ejection fractions 58% versus 63%, respectively.[18] In addition, there was evidence of reduced diastolic function by tissue Doppler measurement in the AAS users (ie, their hearts were weaker and stiffer). Another study of 12 long-term AAS users noted that compared with controls, they were noted to have significant systolic cardiac dysfunction as measured by lower left ventricular ejection fraction (50.1% vs 59.1%; P = 0.003), leading the authors to suggest that further work is needed to determine the extent of this problem.[24] An Italian Doppler imaging study also showed reduced systolic function but in a regional distribution.[25]
