Steroids: Strong on the Outside, Weak on the Inside

Steroids are often taken by athletes to help improve their performance. They can help a person build strength, endurance, and resilience when lifting weights or playing a demanding sport. Although they can make you strong on the outside, the health consequences that can come with regular steroid use can make you weak on the inside. 

Once an athlete begins to see the effects of steroids on their body and their performance coupled with the pressure to perform, they may begin to feel dependent upon steroids for strength and endurance. Fortunately, steroids do not produce the short-term effects on the brain like other drugs. With most other illicit drugs, such as heroin, there is a rapid increase in dopamine which causes a high and drives people to continue using the drug. In fact, the continued use of these types of drugs changes the brain in ways that it creates compulsive drug-seeking behavior. Fortunately, steroids do not have this effect on people.

However, long-term use of steroids can affect certain brain pathways and the production of certain chemicals in the brain, like dopamine, serotonin, and opioids. This can have an effect on a person’s mood and behavior, including depression. Furthermore, when abusing the drug, athletes might take doses that are 10 to 100 times greater than medically prescribed doses. The effects can be severe, which include fertility problems, impotence, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and heart and liver abnormalities.  Males might experience their testes shrink and growth in breast tissue, while females might experience irregular menstrual cycles and the growth of facial and body hair. Both genders could experience acne, mood swings, and aggression. 

Another important danger that comes with steroids, when used through injection, is the possibility of contracting an illness. Those who inject steroids increase their risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or hepatitis. This is another important consideration for athletes when faced with the pressure to perform well, which is a strong reason some people turn to steroids.  

Steroids can either be taken orally or injected directly into muscles. Other forms can be applied to the skin as a cream or gel but these are used for medicinal purposes. When abused, athletes do not use this consumption method. Steroids are sometimes described as anabolic, meaning muscle building, or androgenic, meaning increased male sexual characteristics. The full name for this drug is anabolic-androgenic steroids, sometimes abbreviated as AAS. Steroids are drugs that mimic the male sex hormone testosterone, such as promoting the growth of cells, particularly in the muscles, and enhancing certain masculine characteristics. It’s important to know that it’s a felony to take steroids without a prescription. 

Also, some users of steroids believe that if you take the drug in certain ways that the risks are reduced. These methods include cycling (taking doses and then stopping and then restarting), stacking (combining two or more types of steroids), or pyramiding (slowly increasing the dose until a peak is reached and then tapering off). However, research has yet to find evidence that these methods work to reduce the risks of steroids at high doses.

If you or someone you know is taking steroids, consider the health consequences discussed above, the rewards of performing well in a sport may not be worth the costs of contracting an illness or other possible health risks.