Corticosteroids: Wonder Drug or Hidden Danger? - AI Podcast
Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health
Briana Mercola
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Story at-a-glance
- Corticosteroids are widely used in medicine, but their safety has long been questioned, with more and more dangers being discovered
- Understanding the effects of the body’s natural corticosteroids explains many of the common side effects from synthetic steroids like diabetes, fractures, and tissue loss
- Steroids exemplify a common criticism of modern medicine — treating symptoms rather than addressing the root cause can lead to far more severe chronic health issues
- While they are frequently misused, in some cases, steroids can also be lifesaving, hence requiring knowledge of their appropriate uses
- Superior natural and conventional alternatives to steroid therapy now exist, reducing the justification for using these unsafe drugs
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. Stay informed with quick, easy-to-listen |
| 0:06.1 | summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No reading required. Subscribe |
| 0:11.2 | for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights. Did you know that nearly 8% of |
| 0:17.2 | American adults took an oral steroid last year, yet over half of them reported |
| 0:21.8 | side effects they found deeply troubling. Hello, and welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular |
| 0:27.1 | wisdom. I'm Ethan Foster, and today we're uncovering why those pills are prescribed so casually, |
| 0:34.0 | what they're really doing inside your cells, and how you can choose safer, smarter options. |
| 0:39.8 | I'm Alara Sky, and in this conversation you'll hear why corticosteroids, |
| 0:44.3 | whether swallowed, inhaled, injected, or rubbed on your skin, hold a double-edged sword. |
| 0:50.1 | They can quiet an autoimmune flare or save your life in a crisis, |
| 0:53.8 | yet the same chemistry may set you up for diabetes, |
| 0:57.0 | fractures, vision loss, or weakened immunity. |
| 1:01.0 | Let's start by understanding the hormone your own body makes. |
| 1:05.0 | Cortisol. |
| 1:06.0 | When you feel stressed, your brain fires a signal that ends in the adrenal glands on top of your kidneys. |
| 1:11.9 | Those glands release cortisol, the molecule designed to keep you alive during emergencies. |
| 1:17.4 | Why does that natural response become dangerous when the hormone, or a synthetic cousin, |
| 1:22.3 | is chronically high? |
| 1:24.0 | Your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, or HPA axis, was built for short bursts of cortisol, not constant floods. |
| 1:32.7 | Cortisol first rallies your immune defenses, then flips and suppresses them so you don't attack your own tissues. |
| 1:38.7 | It spikes your blood sugar so you can sprint away from danger, breaks down protein for quick fuel, constricts blood vessels to |
| 1:45.2 | keep pressure up, and sharpens memory briefly. But stretch that surge into weeks or months, |
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