Steroids News 2014—How Bans and Bad Science Are Harming Your Health

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With recent doping events filling our news cycles, such as the famous Lance Armstrong Tour de France case and more recently doping in UFC with athletes like Brian Ortega and Kevin Casey testing positive for anabolic steroids, steroids have become a part of subversive cultures that are harshly criticized. Athletes amongst the most famed users, from baseball to water sports, the public media has turned struggling demigods into social pariahs over the simple results of a urine test.

Although laws against steroid use are far less stringent than those put in place by professional sports leagues and even the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which prevents athletes from even so much as inhalable steroids used for asthma, changes within athletics and on the national level in what may or may not be acceptable under given guidelines may in fact have harmful effects on your health... worse than those of a single anabolic steroid.

Naturally occurring in moderate levels within your own body, "steroids" are a broad class of medications, synthesized often in animal hosts, and orally ingested or injected for specific activation sites. Subdivided into two categories, steroids are either known as glucocorticoids (corticosteroids) or androgens (anabolic steroids).

For those of you with seasonal allergies or severe joint pain that comes with age, corticosteroids are often prescribed to mimic cortisol naturally produced in the adrenal glands and boost the effects of the host immune system or reduce inflammation and swelling. Fairly common hormones throughout many vertebrates, even our dogs receive a dose when severe skin allergies start their itching and scratching.

Anabolic steroids on the other hand, called androgens because they are often male sex hormones needed for growth and development, are much more widely abused. Ideal as enhancement boosters for their roles in causing extreme muscle activity, growth and aggressive behavior, all characteristics of the male sex hormones, anabolic steroids have become common place as a street drug as users look for a competitive edge to push their bodies past their natural limits.

As the son of a bodybuilder and a well-taught scientist, I have learned that every body has predefined limits. Your genetic potential can help classify what height, muscle mass, and even body structure can potentially be, but steroids allow you to push past these limitations. Verging on nearly inhuman, some steroid users can boost muscle mass to more than double what would naturally be afforded to them even under the healthiest of conditions.

Ever see your favorite actor gain 50 pounds of pure muscle in six months to take on the role of a superhero or God? Chances are they're boosting their natural levels with illegal steroids, running rampant in Hollywood gyms, to be cast for the part. Finding a way around the natural limits of their roles as leading men, they're crossing into territory of professional athletes, with aesthetic muscles as their primary goal.

In and of themselves, steroids are dangerous and carry serious side effects. The reason why you can't take your seasonal allergy medications year-round should give you a hint to this effect. Suppressing your immune system and causing internal chaos that your tissues were not built to support, steroid abuse can cause anything from infertility and muscle tears all the way to bone damage and systemic infections. By causing misregulations in your body's negative feedback loops, you not only can cause your body harm, but cause irrevocable depletion of your body's natural hormones and leave yourself with nothing left but empty syringes and healthcare bills to boot.

"[Anabolic steroids] are known to have a range of serious adverse effects on many organ systems, and in many cases the damage is not reversible" Dr. Ali Mohamadi of the Food and Drug Administration's Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products says. "They include fertility problems, impotence, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart & liver abnormalities."

In an effort to curb the detrimental side effects of steroid abuse, the FDA consistently finds new substances otherwise classified as herbal supplements or "vitamin boosters", and places the misrepresented products on their lengthy ban list. But they still are quite aware that steroids persist in the market.

"In fact, anabolic steroids are classified as Schedule III Controlled Substances by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with strict regulations, meaning that not only is a prescription required, but there are extra controls" Mohamadi says. "The number of FDA-approved uses is limited. Most are prescribed as a replacement for sub-normal levels of steroids. They are also prescribed for conditions such as muscle wasting, poor wound healing, and very specific pulmonary or bone marrow disorders."

But although the powerful hormones are able to create such miraculous effects for those in need, their illegal abuse is typically the winner in the headline wars. And the constant transitions from one drug to the next, to avoid legal prosecutions, can carry a permanent toll on your shortening lifespan with every use. The FDA reports that crossing multiple steroid medications (a process they term as "cycling" and "stacking") is extreme and dangerous, and that it carries a far greater risk than each individual steroid would otherwise.

"Abusers think that the different steroids interact to produce an effect on muscle size that is greater than the effects of each drug individually, a theory that has not been tested scientifically" spokespersons from the National Institute on Drug Abuse say. "Doses comparable to those taken by human athletes cause a high frequency of early deaths."

So what's the bottom line? Stay healthy and stay informed. By understanding your body and its limitations you can better address the difficulties you face in achieving whatever goal you might have, whether it be faster sprints or bigger lats. By understanding the endocrinology, or chemical pathways that lead to natural hormone production, you can find that certain foods and supplements known as "prohormones" are effective in boosting hormone levels naturally by giving your body the building blocks it needs. Normal inputs into your diet, such as cholesterol, are the underlying chemicals that give rise to certain hormones, so by eating healthy and finding well-balanced exercise routines paired with a well-rounded diet, you can push yourself and your body to be the best you that you can be!