Posted on: Saturday, September 25, 2004

PRESCRIPTIONS
Steroid use can cause serious health problems

By Landis Lum

My patient had complained of reduced endurance during workouts and swelling in one leg. Tests showed blood clots in his leg and lungs — a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism.

Turns out he was using anabolic steroids for bodybuilding, which caused his blood to thicken.

His heart also was damaged, with abnormal thickening and reduced pumping ability. He's better now, and promised never to use steroids again.

Listen, fellow hunks: anabolic steroids will reduce the size of your testicles, increase the size of your breasts and, in teenagers, reduce eventual adult height. And this is just the beginning. Increased blood clotting can lead to strokes, heart attacks and even loss of limbs. Women may get abnormal facial hair and deepening of the voice, which may be permanent. Baldness (often permanent) may occur in both sexes.

My friend Hoku told me she could tell whenever another friend was on steroids. He would get more obnoxious and argumentative. Many steroid users get depression and even psychosis. Hepatitis, liver cancer, reduced sperm counts and dangerous changes in blood fats (such as cholesterol) can also occur.

One problem with getting steroids through contacts at gyms or through "street pharmacists" is you're never sure if what you're getting is pure and genuine. If a steroid is contaminated with impurities, this can damage your internal organs or cause cancer, life-threatening infections (especially if injected) and death. Those who share needles may get AIDS, hepatitis B and C, and bacterial endocarditis (a frequently fatal infection of the heart valves).

There are many counterfeited steroids out there — compounds their sellers claim are DECA, Equipoise and Primo, for instance. What you get may either be considerably watered down, contain no steroid at all or be something completely different.

One patient who used steroids told me he felt most contacts were more interested in making a profit for themselves than in his bodybuilding success.

These problems are not confined to adults. Most anabolic steroids users are male, and among male students, 1.8 percent of 8th-graders, 2.3 percent of 10th-graders, and 3.2 percent of 12th-graders reported use of these substances in 2003. But steroid abuse is growing most rapidly among young women.

If your child is showing improbable gains in muscle bulk, mood changes, advanced stages of acne on the chest or back, early male-pattern baldness or elevated blood-pressure, anabolic steroid abuse is a possibility. Seek advice from your family doctor.

Dr. Landis Lum is a family-practice physician for Kaiser Permanente and an associate clinical professor at the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine. Send questions to Prescriptions, Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; fax 535-8170 or islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com. This column is not intended to provide medical advice.