The Daily Pill is a series of short posts where I share the definition of a daily term I think you should know. Read it every morning and build up your medical vocabulary.
👨🏽⚕️Steroid:
The word steroid is a general chemical category composed of organic compounds that have a specific chemical structure including three six-carbon rings and one five-carbon ring. Steroids are a broad category of molecules that includes many biologically important compounds such as cholesterol, anti-inflammatory creams, immunosuppressant medications, many hormones like testosterone, estrogen, cortisol, and aldosterone, end even vitamins like Vitamin D.
💪🏼Trivia
The first anabolic steroids were developed in the 1930s. These were synthetic versions of testosterone that were initially intended to treat conditions like delayed puberty and muscle loss from certain diseases.