According to the Partnership for a Drug Free America, anabolic steroids can cause many unwanted reactions. These medications, which affect the body's testosterone-producing system, have positive and negative applications. Doctors use them to legally treat several medical conditions but some athletes use them illegally to gain a competitive edge. Both applications, however, can produce side effects, including death. Much hype surrounds steroid use, yet close inspection allows some facts to emerge.
Death
A common, if somewhat speculative, claim is that steroids cause the death of some users. A casual relationship between steroids and death remains difficult to establish, yet some data support such a hypothesis. A 2009 report in the medical journal and Toxologic Pathology evaluated sports-related deaths in a French population. And experimental tests on laboratory animals confirmed those findings. Six habitual steroid users were found in 15,000 cases. Upon autopsy, all six men showed cardiac lesions. Giving rabbits anabolic steroids produced similar lesions. Most animals showed an enlarged left ventricle, a finding reproduced in humans studies as well.
Suicide
Another idea is that steroid use leads to suicidal tendencies. No study has documented such a relationship despite some interesting correlations. Again, however, a few results do suggest a relationship between steroids and suicide. A 2005 experiment reported in the journal Neuroscience showed that male hamsters will self-administer steroids to the point of death. In fact, steroids might have heroin-like properties. Human studies provide similar suggestive data. A 2005 report in the periodical Body Image shows that people obsessed with musculature are more likely to use steroids and to attempt suicide.
Violence
Anabolic steroids also remain linked to violent crime and even homicide. Relatedly, a long-standing hypothesis states that steroids cause aggression. A 2010 study published in the journal Nature tested this hypothesis in healthy women playing a bargaining game. Results indicated that anabolic steroid intake increased fair bargaining without increasing altruistic behavior. These data suggest that steroids don't increase aggressive behavior, but they do increase status seeking. Thus steroid-induced violence may occur only in situations where aggressiveness is rewarded. For example, endogenous steroids and aggressive behavior correlate in prisoners. Both incarcerated males and incarcerated females with higher steroid levels display more violent acts.
Madness
A final untenable hypothesis is that steroids intake brings on mental illness. Feelings of mania during use and feelings of depression during withdrawal occur in some cases. Yet these symptoms likely reveal an underlying problem and not a drug effect. For example, a 2003 investigation offered in the Journal of Forensic Science found that men taking anabolic steroids showed traits for antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality disorder independent of use. These personality trends make it difficult to interpret drug effects. In addition, many steroid users vigorously train, and such training alone can alter mood.
References
- "Experimental and Toxicologic Pathology"; Heart Lesions Associated with Anabolic Steroid Abuse: Comparison of Post-Mortem Findings in Athletes and Norethandrolone-Induced Lesions in Rabbits; L. Fanton et al.; July 2009
- "Neuroscience"; Androgen Dependence in Hamsters: Overdose, Tolerance, and Potential Opioidergic Mechanisms; K. D. Peters et al.; 2005
- "Body Image": Clinical Features of Muscle Dysmorphia Among Males with Body Dysmorphic Disorder
- "Nature": Prejudice and Truth About the Effect of Testosterone on Human Bargaining Behaviour
- "Journal of Forensic Science"; Measures of Aggression and Mood Changes in Male Weightlifters with and without Androgenic Anabolic Steroid Use; P. J. Perry et al.; May 2003
