Steroids will get you noticed. Use them and you’re almost guaranteed to develop a better physique, which probably will lead to greater self-confidence and a physical/psychological aura that will earn the respect of peers. As a bonus, many will consider you more sexually attractive. But while many steroid users never looked better, are they healthier? Indeed not, many experts agree.
Steroids, a blanket term for several types of synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone, turn the body into a fertile environment for improvement, providing the system with momentum and stamina.
Combined with a thorough workout routine and a balanced diet, steroids can have revolutionary results for the user.
The short-term side effects of steroids usually are more embarrassing than harmful. They include raging acne, puffiness, hair loss, shrunken testicles and gynecomastia (the development of enlarged nipples).
Psychological ramifications are said to include aggressive moodiness and an increased sex drive that eventually gives way to a substantial loss in sexual appetite.
Some steroid users consider one or two of these effects a fair price for a vastly improved musculature, and many users don’t suffer from any immediately noticeable negative effects at all.
Dr. Charles Yesalis, a professor in the College of Human Development at Penn State University who has conducted studies on steroids for 14 years, said the long-term effects are the real danger:
“We do not know the long-term effects of these drugs. Steroids have been associated in case studies with deleterious and perhaps fatal effects. What we know right now, (steroid users) are putting themselves in harm’s way,” he said.
Yesalis said potential complications for long-term steroid use could include increased risk of heart disease and stroke, liver cancer, kidney disease, impotence and sterility. Also, although steroids are not physically addictive, their seductive effects make them psychologically addictive for some, Yesalis said.
Steroids could be particularly harmful to teenagers and young adults.
“There’s a strong potential steroids could close down growth plates. If you start taking them when you’re 5-feet-4, you’ll stay 5-feet-4,” Yesalis said.
Yet a 1988 study by Yesalis concludes 10 percent of male teenagers in the U.S. have experimented with steroids. He estimates that by now, up to 400,000 teens have tried the drugs-including about 1 percent of female teens (who generally use them for endurance or to burn fat rather than to build muscle, he said.)
The age of the users has steadily declined over the years: “We’ve even found use by 5th graders,” Yesalis said.
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The use of steroids doesn’t drop off in college: In a 1989 survey of 2,000 male and female athletes at NCAA schools, Dr. Douglas McKeag and associates discovered 10 percent usage of the drug by males and 1 percent by females.
The federal Food and Drug Administration stepped into the fray in 1991, putting steroids on the official list of “controlled substances,” thereby tightly regulating their prescription. (There are still legal uses for steroids, including the treatment of blood diseases, growth disorders, breast cancer, asthma and arthritis.)
While the FDA move might be seen as a crucial step in wiping out steroid use, the demand hasn’t disappeared with the declaration.
Since the FDA mandate, Yesalis estimates 75 to 85 percent of steroids are off the black market.
Black market steroids present an additional threat to users: Yesalis said that when doctors routinely prescribed steroids (before 1991) and they were picked up in pharmacies, the drugs were at least pure. “But the crack dealer or coke dealer (who are now prime suppliers of the steroids) doesn’t care about what’s really in them.”
Business is flourishing: Published reports estimate that the market for illegal steroids in the U.S. runs about $500 million a year. (A six- to eight-week supply of the drug costs from $50 to $150, depending on the source and the dosage.)
The drugs are taken orally or by injection into the muscles, and each method presents its own set of problems.
Oral steroids can threaten the liver. “Over three to five years of use of oral steroids,” Yesalis said, “and 1 to 3 percent will develop liver tumors. These tumors won’t necessarily by cancerous, but even non-cancerous tumors can rupture and cause someone to bleed to death.”
Injectable steroids, meanwhile, involve the use of needles, and dirty syringes and/or needle sharing (which is commonplace for groups and pairs of intramuscular steroid users, who inject the drug into each other) poses the threat of any number of infections, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.