WHAT ABOUT STEROIDS?

No discussion of bodybuilding would be complete without addressing anabolic steroids and, just as important, their so-called alternatives.

Barely a day goes by that you don’t hear about yet another well-known athletic exposed as a user of steroids. Use of steroids for the purpose of bodybuilding or other sports related enhancement is illegal in the United States.

Anabolic steroids are considered a “controlled substance” and any unlawful use is punishable by law. Period. We won’t discuss this further here.

Unfortunately, there are a disreputable few who have managed to find other chemicals that perform in a similar way but are not “technically” anabolic steroids.

This is very dangerous practice. Some of those alternatives include prescriptions, veterinary, investigational, unapproved drugs and some dietary supplements.

Those described as dietary supplements can be very dangerous as they are regulated as foods instead of drugs. Because of this, there is no information to substantiate their use by bodybuilders nor any data on short or long term effects.

It is very easy to be defrauded by some of these so-called supplements. They can make claims that lead the bodybuilder to believe that they will accomplish miracles lie building muscle, promoting testosterone and so on. The truth is they do not.

In fact the government conducted a 10 year study and collected more than 3,000 drug samples over the “black market.”

What they found was that many of the samples were not steroids at all, but other potentially more dangerous, prescription drugs.

The sad thing is that many of these are popular among teenagers.

Here is a list of some potential health effects of drugs and other substances - ranging from the mildest to the most severe-used as alternatives to anabolic steroids:

• greasy skin
• headache
• severe acne
• premature balding
• bloating associated with water retention
• dizziness
• chills
• drowsiness
• nausea
• vomiting
• muscle tremors
• fever
• fast heart rate
• slowed heart rate
• bloody diarrhea
• seizure-like movements
• lowered blood pressure
• breathing difficulty
• breathing cessation
• blood clots
• cardiovascular problems
• liver disease
• cancer
• heart attack
• stroke
• death

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