With all due respect to Mustang and others who are extremely knowledgeable and helpful,
The problem with listening to young men in their teens or early 20s when dealing with your body and your health is, guys that age, no matter how "knowledgeable," tend to have a feeling of invincibility, tend to think they know more than they do, tend to be confident about everything they say because they haven't lived long enough to be proven wrong about any of their life's major convictions, tend to have a narrow view of "what is scientific fact" and what is not, etc.
Let's face it, we want doctors to have not only real world experience but also several years of university education and specialized medical training. One good reason for this (Doogie Howser aside) is simply that such education and life experience teach us more about HOW TO ASSESS RISK; HOW TO ASSESS THE PROBABILITY THAT WE REALLY KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW; etc. The 18-year-old may be a level headed, fine person - I like to think I was pretty bright then - but the average 18 year old man's concept of risk is seriously skewed, and it shows in car accident statistics. At that age, even though we were "good kids," my friends and I used to race our cars around on back roads and thought nothing of it, because we were "good kids."
People in their 30's or older, with families or kids to think about, not to mention the fact they pay their own car payments, rent/mortgage, insurance, and everything else, tend to be a little careful about crashing their cars. I think the analogy fits here.
Of course, the people who want to compete in the Olympics or just show off their bodies at the beach tend to be much younger. It is this crowd primarily that is so attracted to steroids to achieve their goals. While they may have short-term goals, I wouldn't personally consider them role models for the population in general (and let's face it, this board is wide open to every newbie with an Internet connection who can type "steroid info" into a search engine) to emulate any more than I would consider 13-year-olds who smoke because it's "cool" good advisors on whether it is healthy to smoke or not.
There are good reasons to be wary of drug use advice coming from untrained teenagers, regardless of how long they've been "lifting" or "juicing" or even reading studies on Medline.
There is something to said for those who have a longer time horizon, a wider breadth of education and experience, and a perspective on juicing "in the grand scheme of things."
If it weren't actually important to learn from the voice of experience, the colleges and universities wouldn't be jammed full of students listening to their professors and taking notes. There is a difference between being a precocious whiz kid and being in a position to teach others.
That being said, the punk mods on here know their stuff. But some, unfortunately, just "think" they know their stuff when what they are really offering is opinions. There does tend to be an assumption that juicing, in heavy doses, at an early age like "17 cuz I've done my research," is "NORMAL." Without mods like 2Thick and cranky board members like BOT, there would be no feedback at all to suggest otherwise. We need guys like that for balance!
Steroid use and dieting and training "body builder style" is abnormal, not "normal," no matter how much we may wish to live that lifestyle.