Talk:Glucocorticoid

Fluid balance

Dr.liuchao (talk · contribs) has added some sections on fluid balance and glucocorticoids. This directly contradicts the widespread understanding that glucocorticoids cause fluid retention. This content requires high-quality secondary sources (see WP:MEDRS), such as review articles or physiology textbooks, to be sustainable. JFW | T@lk 22:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:Link Spam

I've just had an entry rv on the basis of the above. This is not the case. I have no wish in promoting a product; I have been prescribed it and want to know what it does. The product leaflet simply provides documentary evidence to support what is frankly a more informative description of Glucocorticoid. Stacie Croquet (talk) 11:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

please do not WP:EDITWAR this back into the article until the folks working here agree that this is a useful addition, thanks. I am not sure you understand that this is not an article about a specific drug; it is an article about a class of hormones (in other words, to a certain extent it is an article about biology) and it is about a class of drugs - some of which are the same as the hormones and some of which are analogs..... if you are looking for information about a specific drug this is not the best place for it. But more importantly, what information are you finding lacking in this article? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:02, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Treatment of sepsis

As per the sources cited in the [Sepsis|Wikipedia article for Sepsis], steroid treatment for sepsis is controversial. As such, I don't think it's advisable to have sepsis in the list of diseases treated with glucocorticoids in the article's introduction; in addition, no further mention of sepsis is made in the rest of the article. 109.102.59.248 (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Fc receptors

@WilliamJennings1989: Glucocorticoids very well may regulate the expression of Fc receptors in macrophages, but the source supplied (PMID 2966197) studied the affects of glucocorticoids on polymorphonuclear neutrophils, not macrophages. The affect of glucocorticoids on macrophages is controversial:

• Werb, Zena (1980). "Hormone receptors and normal regulation of macrophage physiological function". In van Furth, Ralph (ed.). Mononuclear phagocytes functional aspects. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. p. 825. ISBN 978-94-009-8793-7. Glucocorticoids may also decrease the number of Fc receptors on macrophages, but this immunosuppressive function is controversial because of the lack of sensitivity in Fc receptor techniques and the high concentration of glucocorticoids used in previous experiments. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |name-list-format= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

Also the first line in this paragraph is problematic. The vast majority of steroids do not regulate transcription factors, hence the logic of the sentence is faulty. Glucocorticoids regulate gene expression by activation of one specific transcription factor, the glucocorticoid receptor. Boghog (talk) 10:36, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@Boghog:The source I gave supports a difference sentence, they both state how macrophages react to antibodies. It is generally unscientific when a person writes an appeal to ignorance by citing a controversy which is 35 years old. Furthermore, the downregulation of macrophage Fc receptors by is documented in guinea pigs. Contrarily, the quote above questions the physiological nature of reducing activity of the Fc receptor via glucocorticoid production.

That generalization line is not problematic because of the evolutionary relationship had by steroid receptors. I quote:

The receptors for steroid hormones are members of a superfamily of intracellular proteins that associate with cognate ligands, and in response to hormone binding, regulate the transcription factors of specific genes

Regulation is a transitive process, so it very rare that a substance will regulate no genes at all.

It is not good etiquette to delete content out of skepticism which is at least five years old. WilliamJennings1989 (talk) 10:34, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

References

@WilliamJennings1989: I didn't state the the proposition was true or false. Quite to the contrary, I stated that the proposition could be true, but we need a citation to support that assertion. Hence there was no appeal to ignorance. Just an appeal for a source that directly supports the statement. Per WP:V, it is not good form to include inadequately supported statements. The Ruiz citation is better, but this is still an animal study. Finally the statement since glucocorticoids are steroids, they regulate transcription factors is an association fallacy:

1. Glucocorticoids are steroids. (Mostly true, although there are exceptions such as SEGRAs.)
2. Glucocorticoids regulate transcription factors. (True, but it would be more precise to specify the transcription factor that is regulated, namely the glucocorticoid receptor.)
3. All steroids regulate transcription factors. (False)

Neurosteroids for example are a class of steroids which primarily activate cell surface receptors, not transcription factors. There is an almost infinite variety steroids, many of which have no appreciable affinity for any transcription factor (or any other biological target for that matter) at physiological or pharmacological relevant concentrations and hence are phamacodynamically inert. It is also known that glucocorticoids have rapid non-genomic effects so attributing all the effects of glucocorticoids to regulation of gene expression is an over simplification. Boghog (talk) 11:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The confusion may have resulted from the assumption that all steroids are steroid hormones which is not true. If the sentence were modified to read, since glucocorticoids are steroid hormones, they regulate gene transcription factors would be more correct, but still an odd statement. Also there is a slight error in the quotation from the Picard et al. paper above. It should read regulate the transcription factors of specific genes. Steroid hormone receptors may also regulate other transcription factors (e.g., via transrepression) but they themselves directly bind to DNA and hence are classified as transcription factors. Boghog (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

@WilliamJennings1989: Per WP:SCIRS and WP:MEDRS, secondary sources (review articles) are preferred over primary sources. Please note that peer review ≠ secondary. PMID 1829095 is primary while ISBN 978-94-009-8793-7 is secondary. A primary source cannot be used to debunk a high quality secondary source, even if the primary source is more recent. We need a more recent secondary source to do that. I have looked for more recent secondary sources, I cannot find any that specifically review the effects of glucocorticoids on Fc receptor function. Boghog (talk) 11:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)