While many women find muscles attractive in a bloke, acquiring them through the use of steroids can cause such problems in the bedroom that you’ll both wish you’d stuck to being the proverbial 90-pound weakling.
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It’s not just gym rats that may be tempted to use anabolic steroids. Because it can enhance your athletic performance, steroids’ siren call be seductive, especially when its visible effects are so highly regarded and so profound.
Steroids have devastating side-effects
But steroid use can come at a price. The side-effects are manifold and not all are reversible.
In the Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine and Science, Dr Harm Kuipers of the Department of Physiology at the University of Limburg in Maastricht, the Netherlands notes: “Since AS (Anabolic Steroids) have effects on several organ systems, a myriad of side effects can be found.
“One of the problems with athletes, in particular strength athletes and bodybuilders, is the use of … ‘stacking’ in dosages which may be several (up to 40 times) the recommended therapeutical dosage,” says Kuipers, who adds that steroids “may exert a profound adverse effect on the liver.”
He singles out hepatic peliosis, which in laymen’s terms is the development of bleeding, swelling and cysts in the liver. Rupturing of a cyst may trigger fatal bleeding.
Especially at risk are people with any abnormal liver function and those who use steroids containing what’s called the 17-alpha-alkyl group.
Steroids can ruin your sex life And how about its sexual effects? Kuipers writes, “Prolonged use of anabolic steroids in relatively high doses will lead to hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism….” In other words, steroids can shrink your genitals. It can also cause atrophy of the testes and a decrease in sperm cell production. Sperm production apparently returns to normal after a few months.
Hey, presto! Breast –oh!
If you’d like to shrink your testicles and grow your breasts as well as your biceps, then steroids are what you need. It’s long been known that the use of steroids in males results in breast formation (gynaecomastia). The male body converts some of the steroids it’s dosed with into oestrogens, or female hormones and presto, breast-oh! It’s not usually reversible.
Increased desire, decreased performance
One of the anomalies of steroid use is that it appears to increase sexual desire – this has been noted in men and women who use steroids. But in men, it also seems to increase the likelihood of erectile dysfunction. Kuipers writes: “This may seem contradictory, but sexual appetite is androgen dependent, while erectile function is not. Since sexual desire and aggressiveness are increased during AS use, the risk of getting involved in sexual assault may be increased.”
He adds that, “Increased testosterone levels in the blood are associated with masculine behavior, aggressiveness and increased sexual desire. Increased aggressiveness may be beneficial for athletic training, but may also lead to overt violence outside the gym or the track. There are reports of violent, criminal behavior in individuals taking AS. Other side effects of AS are euphoria, confusion, sleeping disorders, pathological anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations.”
But it makes you look good, right?
Well, if you count acne, hair loss, withdrawal of the frontal hair line and male pattern baldness as assets, yes.
Other side effects?
Apparently not enough is known abut the effect of steroids on cholesterol levels, but it seems there may some harmful effects. What about blood pressure? All exercise is supposed to be good for improving blood pressure. But it appears that high doses of steroids increase diastolic blood pressure.
Steroids and heart function
Kuipers says that following some echocardiographic studies done on bodybuilders there’s some evidence that steroids affect heart function and can trigger “cerebrovascular accidents” – a stroke, in other words. He believes more investigation is needed, though.
Er, anything else?
There’s some evidence that steroid abuse harms the immune system, lowering resistance to illness. It appears to reduce glucose tolerance and insulin resistance, two symptoms which Type II diabetes, but it seems these symptoms disappear when steroid use is stopped. Steroids may also temporarily affect thyroid function. There’s one more problem: the many side-effects of steroid use might require the use of other medication, placing a burden on the system. (William Smook)
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