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Sigmund Roid
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Of course this story is sansationalized, but if the 7.3% is true, I am shocked.
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This steroids stuff just gets more scary
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Daily Herald
By Barry Rozner
Put down your coffee, stow your muffins and place your bagel in its upright and locked position.
You might want to sit down and fasten your seat belt, because this is the sort of turbulent moment that shakes you off of every preconceived notion. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the group with the highest use of anabolic steroids today is ... freshman girls. Yes, high school freshman girls.
About 7.3 percent have admitted to using steroids, and that figure is thought to be two or three times higher.
"Unlike many other drugs, kids don't admit it because it's not cool to be on steroids, not to mention the fact that it makes you paranoid,'' explained Linn Goldberg, professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. "The girls believe it helps them shape their bodies, and the boys believe it helps them hit home runs, and so that's their identity.
"The body builders I've treated say it's really about shallow egos and lack of self-confidence, so you can see why kids are so at risk, especially since kids are, by nature, risk-takers.''
Goldberg, a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and United States Olympic Committee Crew Chief for Drug Surveillance, says there can be no doubting the short- and long-term effects of steroid use.
"Some people will say there isn't enough evidence yet and that we haven't proven a thing,'' Goldberg said. "Those are the same people who said it about asbestos and cigarettes.
"We know steroids will raise your bad cholesterol, lower your good cholesterol, raise your blood pressure, promote clotting of the blood and increase the risk of tumors, especially liver tumors.
"Those are just a few things and those all lead to other things.'' But in young people, it's much worse. They get all of the above, and more. Let's take, for example, a 13-year-old male on steroids.
"We do know that he won't get any taller,'' Goldberg said. "It rewires his brain and tricks it into thinking he's much older than he is.
"You're giving a powerful hormone to the receptors in the brain that want to go at a slow pace, but steroids trick the receptors into thinking this boy is fully grown, so he stops growing and instead of being 6-foot, or 6-foot-3, he'll stop at 5-5 or 5-6.
"The heightened aggression that comes on might persist forever, as will changes in personality. As if adolescence wasn't tough enough, it heightens adolescence.
"About 10 years down the road, he can expect to start experiencing liver problems and heart problems.
"There's female breast enlargement and his testis will shrink and he could become sterile. Then, there's the prostate, which grows with testosterone. Prostate cancer loves testosterone. It can't get enough of the stuff. "A 13-year-old boy is basically inviting prostate cancer by using steroids.''
And a 13-year-old girl?
"Her brain is rewired as well and in many ways she will become an adolescent male, and the changes are mostly permanent,'' Goldberg said. "It lowers her voice, she'll grow facial hair and body hair and the genitalia will grow.
"This doesn't even take into account all the changes in cardiovascular risk factors and cancer risk factors.''
That all sounds very pleasant. What about the so-called legal supplements?
"They could be taking something that's not manufactured with any standards or safety controls,'' Goldberg said. "The FDA is excluded from analyzing supplements that are sold in your local stores, but the IOC studied supplements sold in the U.S. and found 18 percent were spiked with true anabolic steroids, though the label said nothing about it.
"Creatine has never been studied among kids, but in short studies there have been problems with elevations in markers of kidney function.
"Kids can get the actual steroids pretty easily from local gyms. The body builders get them off the Internet or from Mexico. And in the last two years, major steroid rings were broken up at high schools in Utah and Arizona.''
It also is the only drug increasing in use while even alcohol and tobacco are dropping.
So if 6.1 percent of high school students admit to using anabolic steroids, and the real number may be two to three times that, why is it happening?
"Steroid users believe that parents are more accepting of it than typical drugs of abuse, since the drugs aren't for getting high,'' Goldberg said. "Kids may think parents want them to get a college scholarship no matter what the cost, or maybe even a pro contract.
"Girls may be doing it for sports or just for body-shaping. So these substances have a 'pro-social' effect and may mean parents are unwittingly encouraging children to use them.
"Parents who have unrealistic expectations are partially responsible for the emphasis placed on sports in middle school, high school and college, and the reaction of kids to that emphasis.
"Taking steroids, the pharmacy approach to looking better or performing better, is a bad idea. You alter nature and the reaction is highly unpredictable.
"In essence, taking steroids is Russian roulette.''
[Link]
Of course this story is sansationalized, but if the 7.3% is true, I am shocked.
----------------
This steroids stuff just gets more scary
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Daily Herald
By Barry Rozner
Put down your coffee, stow your muffins and place your bagel in its upright and locked position.
You might want to sit down and fasten your seat belt, because this is the sort of turbulent moment that shakes you off of every preconceived notion. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the group with the highest use of anabolic steroids today is ... freshman girls. Yes, high school freshman girls.
About 7.3 percent have admitted to using steroids, and that figure is thought to be two or three times higher.
"Unlike many other drugs, kids don't admit it because it's not cool to be on steroids, not to mention the fact that it makes you paranoid,'' explained Linn Goldberg, professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. "The girls believe it helps them shape their bodies, and the boys believe it helps them hit home runs, and so that's their identity.
"The body builders I've treated say it's really about shallow egos and lack of self-confidence, so you can see why kids are so at risk, especially since kids are, by nature, risk-takers.''
Goldberg, a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and United States Olympic Committee Crew Chief for Drug Surveillance, says there can be no doubting the short- and long-term effects of steroid use.
"Some people will say there isn't enough evidence yet and that we haven't proven a thing,'' Goldberg said. "Those are the same people who said it about asbestos and cigarettes.
"We know steroids will raise your bad cholesterol, lower your good cholesterol, raise your blood pressure, promote clotting of the blood and increase the risk of tumors, especially liver tumors.
"Those are just a few things and those all lead to other things.'' But in young people, it's much worse. They get all of the above, and more. Let's take, for example, a 13-year-old male on steroids.
"We do know that he won't get any taller,'' Goldberg said. "It rewires his brain and tricks it into thinking he's much older than he is.
"You're giving a powerful hormone to the receptors in the brain that want to go at a slow pace, but steroids trick the receptors into thinking this boy is fully grown, so he stops growing and instead of being 6-foot, or 6-foot-3, he'll stop at 5-5 or 5-6.
"The heightened aggression that comes on might persist forever, as will changes in personality. As if adolescence wasn't tough enough, it heightens adolescence.
"About 10 years down the road, he can expect to start experiencing liver problems and heart problems.
"There's female breast enlargement and his testis will shrink and he could become sterile. Then, there's the prostate, which grows with testosterone. Prostate cancer loves testosterone. It can't get enough of the stuff. "A 13-year-old boy is basically inviting prostate cancer by using steroids.''
And a 13-year-old girl?
"Her brain is rewired as well and in many ways she will become an adolescent male, and the changes are mostly permanent,'' Goldberg said. "It lowers her voice, she'll grow facial hair and body hair and the genitalia will grow.
"This doesn't even take into account all the changes in cardiovascular risk factors and cancer risk factors.''
That all sounds very pleasant. What about the so-called legal supplements?
"They could be taking something that's not manufactured with any standards or safety controls,'' Goldberg said. "The FDA is excluded from analyzing supplements that are sold in your local stores, but the IOC studied supplements sold in the U.S. and found 18 percent were spiked with true anabolic steroids, though the label said nothing about it.
"Creatine has never been studied among kids, but in short studies there have been problems with elevations in markers of kidney function.
"Kids can get the actual steroids pretty easily from local gyms. The body builders get them off the Internet or from Mexico. And in the last two years, major steroid rings were broken up at high schools in Utah and Arizona.''
It also is the only drug increasing in use while even alcohol and tobacco are dropping.
So if 6.1 percent of high school students admit to using anabolic steroids, and the real number may be two to three times that, why is it happening?
"Steroid users believe that parents are more accepting of it than typical drugs of abuse, since the drugs aren't for getting high,'' Goldberg said. "Kids may think parents want them to get a college scholarship no matter what the cost, or maybe even a pro contract.
"Girls may be doing it for sports or just for body-shaping. So these substances have a 'pro-social' effect and may mean parents are unwittingly encouraging children to use them.
"Parents who have unrealistic expectations are partially responsible for the emphasis placed on sports in middle school, high school and college, and the reaction of kids to that emphasis.
"Taking steroids, the pharmacy approach to looking better or performing better, is a bad idea. You alter nature and the reaction is highly unpredictable.
"In essence, taking steroids is Russian roulette.''
[Link]
