Final answer:
Chronic steroid use in premature infants has been primarily associated with osteopenia, a condition that leads to weaker bones. Health risks for adults and adolescents using anabolic steroids broadly include liver damage, heart disease, and high blood pressure, but these are not the main concerns in premature infants treated with steroids.
Step-by-step explanation:
The chronic use of steroids in premature infants has been associated primarily with osteopenia. Osteopenia is a condition that involves the thinning of bone mass which makes the bones weaker than normal. Chronic steroid use can similarly impact adults and adolescents, leading to an increased risk of bone fractures due to the weakening of bones.
While the negative impact of anabolic steroids is quite vast and includes a range of health risks such as liver damage, heart disease, and high blood pressure, these are not generally the side effects observed in premature infants given therapeutic steroids. In such infants, the concern over side effects like cholestasis, nephrolithiasis, and hypoglycemia is less substantiated in the context of chronic steroid use, as these are not the primary conditions linked to such treatment in this particular population.
It is crucial for health care providers to weigh these risks against the potential benefits when considering the use of steroids for medical treatment in premature infants, and continuous monitoring is essential to mitigate potential side effects.