Arimidex as to sides and study's.

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This was a reply by Chillin a Mod. at Dr. 's forum and I feel this says it

all.

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Originally Posted by jcfitzge

I recently read a post that mentioned that Arimidex had side effects. My doctor

just started me Arimidex and I am curious what side effects I should be aware

of. All input is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

My previous discussions were false starts because I tried to take a high level

approach, but people decided to get caught up in a philosophical discussion of

whether an effect is a primary effect or a side effect.

That discussion is actually a major distraction because your real question is:

" When I take arimidex, what are all of the biological processes which will

happen inside my body ? " .

The concept of a primary effect or a side effect is meaningless if you ask this

question.

So I'm going to answer this question and cut straight to the chase.

The answer to that question is that arimidex will:

a) inhibit the action of the aromatase enzymes throughout your body,

and

gradually be metabolized by your liver.

and

c) do nothing else <--- CRITICAL !

Everything else which occurs in your body is a downstream result of either:

a) the inhibition of the aromatase enzymes in your body

and

the metabolization of the arimidex by your liver.

The effects of inhibiting the aromatase enzymes in your body will be a reduction

in the amount of conversion of your T (testosterone) into E2 (estradiol) - the

most powerful estrogen.

Which will initially result in a reduction in your E2, and a corresponding

increase in your T, and these two hormone level changes will feedback on many of

your remaining hormones, using several different feedback loops.

As a result, the effects of supplementing with armidex will be the modulation of

several hormone levels, even though arimidex only directly affects the amount of

T (testosterone) being converted into E2.

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The effects of metabolizing the arimidex in your liver will tax your liver by an

amount proporitional to the dose of arimidex. Since you're only taking " male "

dosage levels of arimidex, this effect is trivial.

If you were taking female-on-anti-cancer-therapy doses of arimidex (1 tab per

day) then your liver will suffer over a decade or two, but then arimidex was

never assumed to be taken for such long durations at such high dosages, because

female cancer sufferers are never expected to live for decades after contracting

cancer, and having to kill off close to 100% of their estradiol.

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There are no " decades-long " studies of arimidex, using male dosages (approx 0.1

mg per day) so you're not going to find any papers proving that arimidex is safe

over decades of use at male dosages (approx 0.1 mg per day).

We know arimidex is safe because males (mostly body builders) have been using

arimidex since soon after 1994 when Astra Zeneca developed it. These males have

been taking arimidex longer than you have (and most likely ever will) and if

they ever experience any long term effects, then we will broadcast that info

here, and you can abandon arimidex long before it will ever become a problem for

you.

The development of arimidex was a refinement of several previous

not-sufficiently-specific aromatase inhibitors. Those earlier generation

aromatase inhibitors suppressed more than just P450 aromatase enzymes, hence a

more specific aromatase inhibitor had to be developed.

Astra Zeneca developed arimidex with the specific intention of ensuring that the

drug acted only on P450 aromatase enzymes, and that's exactly what they

achieved.

As far as anyone has ever been able to ascertain, that's all there is. That's

what makes arimidex such a relatively safe drug. It's extremely specific to the

aromatase enzyme.

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It's up to your medical professional adviser to predict how the remaining

hormones in your body will move (change levels) after the reduction in E2, but

we can help you with that.