The risks of anabolic steroids - used by some athletes to build muscle mass - are by now well-documented. But it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that steroids bought illegally through "underground labs" and over the internet generally aren't what their labels say they are, researchers reported yesterday at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry's annual meeting in Los Angeles.
Steroid users often complain that the drugs they had bought - often at significant expense - don't work, or have serious side effects. "Actual data regarding the composition of steroids obtained on the black market are scarce," however, presenter Dr D Zach Smith, of Boston Medical Center, told Reuters Health by email.
"Many labs in the US refuse to analyze suspected steroids," he continued, "so users are not able to determine with any degree of certainty if the steroids they are using are labelled or dosed correctly." Smith and his colleagues looked at 217 studies that had analysed the chemical makeup of illegally obtained anabolic steroids.
The researchers found that almost a third - 30 percent - of samples others had analysed did not contain any of the drugs listed on their labels. Even when the samples did include an anabolic steroid, nearly half - 44 percent - contained the wrong dosages, either much lower or much higher. One sample had less than one percent of the dosage its label claimed, while another had more than five times as much.
Unexpectedly high doses could lead to more severe cases of all the potential harms associated with steroids, Smith said: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, shrinkage of the testicles, enlarged male breasts, and acne.
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