Steroids can change the shape of your BRAIN, study finds

Steroids can alter brain structure, a new study of commonly prescribed drugs shows.

Brain scans of nearly 25,000 people revealed that patients taking glucocorticoids had less white matter, the tissue that connects parts of the brain.

Dutch academics said their “remarkable” findings could explain links between drugs and neurological problems.

Patients with asthma, arthritis, and eczema are all routinely prescribed steroids. However, known side effects include anxiety, mood swings, and depression.

Although never proven, steroids themselves are believed to be behind the crippling symptoms.

The new study, published in Open BMJ, doesn’t conclusively prove that drugs are to blame.

But evidence from Leiden University experts offers a possible mechanism that could explain the side effects.

Professor Onno Meijer and colleagues said glucocorticoids “probably” cause changes in the brain.

More research is needed to confirm the findings, as the exact implications of the changes remain a mystery.

However, they argued that the findings may partially underlie the neuropsychiatric side effects seen in patients taking glucocorticoids.

One in 200 people in wealthy countries use glucocorticoids, this figure rises to one in 100 in the UK and USA.

Common types include beclomethasone (asthma) and betamethasone (arthritis).

Medicines are classified as inhaled or systemic, the latter consisting of tablets or injections.

They work by suppressing the immune system that becomes hyperactive and causes conditions such as arthritis, asthma, and eczema.

The researchers looked at data from 24,885 people included in the UK biobank.

The database contains health data from half a million Britons who have undergone dozens of screenings and are questioned about their lifestyle.

Approximately 222 volunteers used systemic steroids, 557 received inhaled steroids and 24,106 received no steroids.

None of them had been diagnosed with a neurological disorder or were on mood-altering drugs such as antidepressants.

Professor Meijer and team compared the participants’ MRI brain scans and mood questionnaires.

Steroid users had a “less robust” white matter than non-drug-taking participants.

Taking glucocorticoids for a long time and taking the drugs in tablet or injection form rather than inhaled versions was associated with the greatest white matter reduction.

Systemic users had a larger caudate than those who did not take the drug.

Meanwhile, those who received inhaled steroids had a smaller amygdala.

Both the caudate and the amygdala are involved in cognitive and emotional processing.

Systemic steroid users performed worse than non-users in a test measuring their processing speed.

And they experienced more depression, restlessness, and fatigue than non-users.

Inhaled steroid users reported more fatigue than nonusers alone.

The team noted that participants were asked only a few questions about their mood, and that their lower levels of happiness could be due to their medical condition rather than the drugs prescribed for treatment.