: what are medical steroids? (which are actually used in treatments) drugs? hormones? enzymes? why we use them?
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The really unhelpful short answer is that a medical steroid is a steroid, chemically.
It’s just that calling something a steroid means something, specifically, when you say it to a chemist. Chemically, steroids are a class of molecules that all have the same basic foundation-its three six membered rings and one 5 membered ring attached in sort of an s shape (the five membered ring is on an end), with a variety of other things attached. This basic shape is shared in common by a bunch of hormones and other signaling chemicals in the body. You can change what the steroid is and does by changing out all the things that could be attached to this base.
We use them medicinally because they’re pretty effective. We figured out the basic structure of things that the body is using to regulate various processes, and basically co-opted it. By using already existing systems, it’s easier to know where and how something will interact than if you create something entirely new. And for some medications, we are just making the same chemical that the body produces normally (or should be producing). By adding more of it, you can get the body to do that thing more. Sort of the classic example is hormonal birth control—by upping the levels of certain hormones, you can convince the body that it’s already pregnant or otherwise doesn’t need to go through the whole ovulation thing.
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