Talk:Anabolic steroid/Archive 6

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Pasted sentence

Can this "pasted" sentence please be cited? [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't sourced from were I copied it (a couple of sections above where it ended up). See [2]. Xasodfuih (talk) 14:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Question for the WP:MOS expert

I plan to cite the Hartgens and Kuipers study a number of times, but not just from the abstract. Since this a 42 page review, I think page numbers would be good idea. Should I just copy the {cite journal} template every time and change the page number, or is there some other house preferred method? Xasodfuih (talk) 14:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Since there is no precedent for that already established in the article, you can pretty much pick your poison. What you suggest works. Alternately, if you're going to use it a lot, you could list the main citation information at the top of the References section as a bullet item, and then just use a shortened footnote in ref tags, like: <ref>Hartgens and Kuiper (year), p. xx</ref> (See Tourette syndrome). WP:CITE does not prescribe citation methods; since there is nothing already established in this article, you can do whatever is easiest, makes sense, and has consensus here on talk. I prefer using the shortened citations over repeating the cite journal template each time, as they chunk up the text less, but others don't care for them. It's really a matter of personal preference and consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, shortened form makes sense to me as well. Xasodfuih (talk) 14:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Another option, which I've used at passive smoking, is to use a single <ref> but then append the page numbers by hand on a case-by-case basis. So the code like this: <ref name="42-page-article"/><sup>, p. 26</sup>. The output looks like this: [65], p. 26, and you only take up one spot in the references list. It's easier to see than explain - take a look at the passive smoking article. MastCell Talk 18:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Side effects

This article reports the side effects with a degree of certainty not congruent with that found in the literature. Uptodate has a good overview for those who have access. As these are restricted drugs they are poorly researched and the conclusions are less than certain. For those who have access see: http://www.uptodate.com/online/content/topic.do?topicKey=r_endo_m/9455&selectedTitle=4~150&source=search_result#9 Here are two passages from the article "

Psychological disorders — Many psychological abnormalities have been described, both in the medical literature and anecdotally, in men taking high doses of androgens. Most descriptions are uncontrolled, although in one study an attempt was made to compare men taking and not taking androgens [21]. One hundred sixty men recruited from gymnasia responded to a questionnaire about androgen use and psychiatric symptoms. Psychiatric symptoms, including major mood disorders and aggressive behavior, were more common in the men who had taken androgens than in those who had never taken androgens, and among the former the symptoms were more common when they were taking androgens. Controlled studies using supraphysiologic doses of testosterone enanthate, although lower than those athletes often use, for up to six months failed to demonstrate psychological abnormalities [16,22,23].

Cardiac disease — The effect of high doses of androgens on cardiac function is uncertain. Several case reports describe sudden death in young athletes who had no previously known heart disease but who were taking androgens; cardiac hypertrophy or myocarditis were found at autopsy [24,25]. It is not possible to establish causality in these sporadic cases. (See "Risk of sudden cardiac death in athletes").

There are also reports of left ventricular hypertrophy in body builders and power lifters, but most of these studies have not been randomized or controlled for degree of exercise, which itself can affect the degree of cardiac hypertrophy [26]. In one randomized, placebo-controlled trial, eight body builders treated with nandrolone decanoate showed no difference in several echocardiographic parameters at the end of eight weeks from those treated with placebo, but this study was limited by the small numbers of subjects and short duration [27]."

--Doc James (talk) 14:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So, why this not congruent with what the wiki article reports? Both "update" and the wiki article report psychological and heart conditions as controversial (the former more so than the latter). Xasodfuih (talk) 14:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
My sense is that we repeatedly hammer home the fact that little high-quality data exist on the effects of steroids as used recreationally. Most of the data is indeed limited to case reports, case series, uncontrolled series, or small controlled trials. Perhaps we could state this definitively, once, somewhere in the article, if we don't already, but I agree with Xasodfuih that I think the article already hits this point. MastCell Talk 18:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Oral nandrolone??

MastCell has asked me not to leave so bitterly, so I will try to stick around and will refrain from lengthy passages and will endeavour to summarize my POV objections and globalization issues slowly, and in somewhat terser form. For now, before I head to the gym (clean, for now), I wanted to fly the issues of the Kelly Guest nandrolone-doping scandal at the Commonweelth Games a number of years ago; in looking this up, I found this CBC Sports article on "the top 10 doping scandals" (in Canada). Clearly there are medical and pharmacological people in this discussion who may know what's on the market or what's technically possible, but suffice to say that among the user community there was a lot of surprise at the regional IOC director/doctor stating, flat out, that it must have been that his protein or other supplements were spiked with nandrolone; similarly as you'll read in that article, Alex Baumann claims his toothpaste was spiked, while Greg Rusedski claimed his electrolyte drink was spiked. BUT - does oral nandrolone EVEN EXIST?? There were a lot of sidelong glances within the user community, as well as no small amount of curiosity where nandrolone-spiked toothpaste could be gotten, never mind nandrolone-spiked Gatorade. In Guest's case, there were medical theories at the time - from within the training community - that the body's levels of nandrolone can be naturally elevated through extreme training/conditioning, which of course is what being a triathlete is all about; if he had taken nandrolone, either through the regular injectable method, or through the purported oral ingestion method (if it exists), his levesl would have been in the 1000:1 range or at least a fewhundred to one, as with Rusedski; Baumann's were 10:1, which maybe has to do with a long time since whatever ingestion/injetion. it's examples of half-baked information like this that give the user community's skepticism about media witch hunts and physicians' lack of knowledge sbout steroids some carriage; never mind the well-known cheapness of supplment manufacturers, who are into reducing costs, not adding to them with expensive and (if extant) rare powdered steroids. You just don't give away steroids, basically, just to make it seem like your protein powder aactually builds muscle. So that's the best I can do for being brief; the basic point here is the "reaching" for explanations based in non-fact that typify reportage of steroid "scandals", and between teh athletes' own posturing about being spiked, and IOC doctors who talk about medications that, as far as teh user community and your scribe here know, do not exist, there's a lot of "earned skepticism" on the value of at least some medical opinions, and even more on media hype/witch hunting. Guest's name still hasn't been cleared despite further issues with "unstable urine" samples. Him I believe, the other two I think were talking through their jockstraps....both of those articles I'll link up to the sports doping articles at some point, but the issues raised by them i feel are pertinent to the poor reputation that medical researchers/spokespeople have within the user community, which is relevant here, though apparently finding sources with WP:Weight to satisfy some here is going to be a problem....Skookum1 (talk) 19:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly is your objection here. Doping tests for nandrolone are somewhat unreliable, something covered in the article on 19-norandrosterone, which I've expanded a bit recently. Perhaps more info could be added to nandrolone and/or sports doping, but dvelving into that topic here would make this article more biased on the OMG illegal/banned this and that. Xasodfuih (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, as noted - I think I noted it - that most of this does belong on one of the doping pages; my basic point in bringing the story here was to point up how ill-informed some doctors apparently are, including IOC-mandated doctors in charge of testing, and of research; the IOC doctor in the Guest case seems to have been shooting her mouth off, in other words. Not that she's a researcher but her grasping for answers and looking for "negative proofs" is part of what I mean about the inbuilt biases of the methodologies of a wide swathe of the research, that as noted previously is infmamusly "results driven" and not objective; test/research design is implicitly laid out by the answers that hose funding the research would like taht researcher to find; it's much like the way political polls claim to be scientific but are designed to give their financign clients the answers that they want. And I note the early 1880s peer criticism of the discoverer of testosterone synthesis/extraction that "auto suggestion" was at play in the observed results, thought myself I find that dubious even though it was only guinea pig nuts....bull's balls and horse's etc have been used since ancient times in deits of athletes, warriors, folk medicine etc and there's still Greeks and others who swear by a plate of testicles to help your get up and go...surely there's some basis to that? In that light, and if there's WP:RS at least documenting "gonadic cuisine" in various cultures/eras, that would definitely seem to be part of the history of human interest in distilling "male essences". If eating sea urchin gonads (female, granted) gives your body a hormone rush; surely eating bull's balls will....not sure about guinea pigs though....I don't mean to digress, but the commentary is necessary when things like pre-mecial historical uses and observed placebo effects are taken into account on the one hand, and uninformed commentary about what substances are allegedly avaialble are coming from those in charge of doping control and dopiogn research; OK, OK, that's a subject for the doping page as far as expanding this article goes, but it's the type of big grain of salt that I believe underlies a lot of the material being presetned here without qualifying statments keeping marginal test results from being presented as sweeping facts; "claimed to be" in the case of many of these test results may normally be a "weasel word" but given the statistical and methodological variables, it's not like any of these tests prove any hard and fast facts; what they do is prove their authors' ability to write convincing reports, and to design experiemnts that yield the desired (political) results....Skookum1 (talk) 05:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
First, while the concentration of teststerone in gonads is higher, it isn't much. Humans produce about 8mg/test per day. But that's not stored in the testicles an any one time. Also, only 1/6 of testosterone ingested survives in a usable form. So, the amount of testosterone that can be ingested from easing testes is generally negligible. I'll add some of this to the article. It's from a basic pharmacology book. Xasodfuih (talk) 08:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, granted the subject of "glandular foods" may belong in training aides/training supplmenets and, of course, Greek cuisine and others, as they're not steroids as such; more to do with the historical search for "magic bullets" based on testes, herbs whatever that led to steroids. Part of the history of steroids, but not steroids. All kinds of dessicated glandulars were popular c.1990 - adrenals particularly. And what is the comparative relationship of "herbal steroids" like sarsparilla, wild yam root, tribulus terrestris? Sarsparilla in particular has side effects btw (gynecomastia is common among guys I knew who tried it).Skookum1 (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, 19-norandrostenedione, an article which I've started recently, should answer your question about "does oral nandrolone even exist?" Xasodfuih (talk) 03:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, I've only just scanned that article and saw nothing direct about that; but wouldn't 19-norandrostenedione leave different test results/compounds than nandrolone would? Another consideration is, even if that's what they (accidentally?) ingested, 19-norandrostenedione wasn't yet illegal at the time, only Deca/nandrolone was; AFAIK they "test differently" - one of the reasons prohormones were invented/popularized is because they wouldn't flag on the tests as being banned substances, i.e. they were intentionally designed to not mimic banned substances in test results, only in training/performance results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs)
No, 19-norandrostenedione is metabolized, in part, to 19-norandrosterone. So is nandrolone. That is, it's a common metabolite. The problem is that 19-norandrosterone is the marker used to detect nandrolone use - but since 19-norandrostenedione produces the same metabolite, it can yield a false positive for nandrolone on commonly used assays. They test the same. As Xasodifuih pointed out, it's less of an issue now, because androstenedione is just as illegal as nandrolone - so the issue of which yielded the metabolite is a bit academic. Sorry, that's not a very clear explanation - I was going to provide a few references, but PubMed appears to be out of action at the moment. MastCell Talk 05:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, take a look here - this paper lays out the issue pretty usefully. MastCell Talk 05:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Huh. Again, I'm not sure that prohormones were even on the "grey market" at the time of the Guest and Baumann scandals; but even so, an IOC doctor should have called them what they were - prohormones - rather than saying it was a steroid. ("grey market" in Canada is a reference to materials readily available in the US which shop owners bring across the border and keep under the counter out of the sight of Health Protection Branch officials (they're our FDA ... "illegal trade in legal substances"..... Still, if someone was going to spike an Olympic swimmers' toothpaste to get him busted, why use a t hen-expensive and not-easy-to-get prorhormone when everything from Andriol to Anadrol was readily available in almost any locker room?Skookum1 (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

"Illegal trade in anabolic steroids in North America" outdated and rather long

That section is missing for instance more recent events like the BALCO scandal, but has quite a bit of verbiage in it. Perhaps it's time for a separate article and just a summary here? Doing this may also address Skookum1's concern that the article is too US-centric, and too focused on social rather than scientific issues. Xasodfuih (talk) 11:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

There were numerous problems in this section; I've removed the outright fabrications not supported by the sources cited, and tagged the more plausible statements where necessary. Xasodfuih (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I wondered about proposing a separate article as the subject matter behooves the template for {{WikiProject Crime}} and also {{WikiProject Sports}} and also I think there's even a doping-at-the-Olympics subproject of {{WikiProject Olympics}}. In the midst of my overheating the other night I almost added the Crime and Sports templates to this article, but I appreciate that it's meant to be a pharmacological/medical article. what a suitable title for a split-off article might be is maybe a thorny issue; but please note that every time in this article it says "illegal in many countries" there should be a corollary phrase that they are legal in most. LOL Illegal trade in supplements from the United States to Canada is a whole subject in its own right (the HPB is a LOT stricter than the FDA on new products and a lot of training supplements and non-training herbal and other products are banned in Canada; it's a Big Pharma thing up here, including upcoming measures to regulate even vitamins to place all such materials under control of Big Pharma....).Skookum1 (talk) 13:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
BTW your fact template re "fake" and internet sales not being in the DEA report, I don't think that was one of my emendations to that passage:
In addition, a significant number of counterfeit products are sold as anabolic steroids, particularly via mail order from websites posing as overseas pharmacies. Individuals also produce fake steroids and attempt to sell them over the Internet, causing a wide variety of health concerns.[citation needed]
But, once cited, somehow, I would add to the end of that something about fraud, as the defrauding of steroid buyers is not limited to internet commerce, and it's one of the social issues of the ban that doesn't get much attention or sympathy from media or police - "somebody took my money/credit card number and never even sent me real drugs!" - but the same applies to non-illegal products of course. One saying in the game is "a bodybuilder and his money are soon parted", which is often cynically quipped when you hear about someone who tried to order from a Russian or Indian site and got bilked. Again, this is more for the split-off crime/contraband article than here, but it's definitely part of the formula. My two points on weighing in here are that the citation requested may have to be from one of the bodybuilding/steroid-forum sites as the subject of fakes is of course of more concern to users than it is to police. Actually, there are some legal cases that were thrown out when it came out in court that the confiscated evidence wasn't even the product that the police, or the accused, thought they were. But in a sense, the DEA's info pages are no better in terms of WP:Weight and WP:RS than the bodybuilder sites, as despite its legal authority and media reputation the DEA site very often publishes false information, or at best disingenuous information, or conflated/distorted information. If they don't have anything about the trade in fakes, that's an example of their lack of complete coverage of the issue, enit? A source is only reliable as its "facts", and when they're incomplete or a-factual, then WP:RS for that site should be re-assessed. Anyway, on the first sentence in the quoted bit, counterfeit products are anabolic steroids, they're not "sold as" anabolic steroids, though some are/were sold as if they were brand-name products rather than "home brews" or "foreign copycats". Maybe the DEA isn't distinguishing between counterfeits and fakes, but there is a difference; countefeits work, fakes don't (usually fakes pose as brand-names, most counterfeits no longer bother and have their own "brand" names, e.g. British Dragon). And if the phrasing "posing as overseas pharmacies" is in the DEA cite, it's another example of the skewed information provided by the DEA - because many of such sites, i.e. the ones that actually ship real product (brand name usually) ARE bona fide licensed phramacies or distributors in other countries (and Mexico is not "overseas", a term which is USPOV/CanPOV anyway for readers in the UK and Eire etc...). Confusion of facts is stock-in-trade on DEA-generated materials, I think http://www.erowid.com even has, or had, a page on teh false claims made by the DEA and its sponsored/backed websites and publications, though perhaps not concerning steroids but in relating to other preparations.Skookum1 (talk) 13:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
By all of which, I'm getting at the point that sites like http://www.mesomorphosis.com and http://elitefitness.com are at least as credible as the DEA when it comes to this sort of subject.Skookum1 (talk) 13:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

My main argument about splitting is that the section on doping is fairly short and delegates the details to another article, while the one about the illegal trade is fairly long. This is despite the fact that AAS are one of the most commonly used substances amongst those banned in sports (at least I've added that fact to the lede). YMMV as to which is the best way to achive balance, but the section on doping could easily include some overview of the BALCO scandal (Marion Jones included) and some other famous athletes that got caught, statistics on prevalence of AAS doping (not just in the general population, which are included) etc. For now, I'll work more on expanding the scientific parts: mechanism of action and aa effects are still missing some important points and are underdeveloped relative to the social issues. Xasodfuih (talk) 15:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree about BALCO/Marion Jones but in the interests of globalization of the article I submit that Ben Jonson et al. can't be left out; his case was what led to the criminalization of steroids in Canada, easily the most high-profile Canadian case, and one of the more high-profile Olympics cases too, if not the absolute highest in profile. Not sure about UK, Russian, German, Chinese, Australian etc. "primary cases" and of course the section can't be too big but at least one or two of the most high-profile "overseas" cases should be included, whatever those may turn out to be. Still not sure what the "illegal trade" article-title should be...Consequences of the criminalization of anabolic steroids takes in a wide swathe of the subject but seems cumbersome. Any suggestions?Skookum1 (talk) 15:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
On the theme of what else this article needs pharmacologically/medically vs the criminality/doping sections, IMO information on andropause-related and anti-geriatric testosterone replacement therapy should be expanded, instead of only focussing on studies related to the "elderly" and omitting mention of the growth of TRT-therapy at private clinics, and its ongoing use in countries such as Germany, Russia etc.Skookum1 (talk) 15:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree that few people even in the US can remember what Operation Raw Deal was about even just a year later, while Marion Jones and Ben Johnson are known worldwide (I could still recall Ben had 100m WR before disqual., but i couldn't recall what he took), yet this article covers the "Raw Deal" issue and never mentions any of the famous athletes etc. The only other drawn out doping scandal I could remember off the top of my head was Andrea Raducan with pseudophedrine. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Also Heidi Krieger (it took me while to remember his name). Xasodfuih (talk) 16:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

FYI, the paragraph I removed was remarked as problematic two years ago. Back then it was in another section. It looks like it just got shuffled around, but nobody checked the veracity of it. Xasodfuih (talk) 17:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Ben Jonson <-> stanozolol. Like Baumann and Rusedski he claimed to have been spiked, theoretically/ostensibly either by a DMSO-based massage cream used by a masseur who wasn't his regular and/or i think there was some issue about what he claims to have thought was a cyanocobalamine shot. Subsequent investigation never quite cleared up the issue, though he remains a pariah in Canadian sport/celeb circles; there should probably be an article on Charlie Francis, his trainer/doctor, who came out with some very controversial defences/rationalizations in the investigations. The common counter-allegation was that Carl Lewis was using GH, which couldn't be/can't be tested for (the IOC claims it can be tested for, but I have yet to hear independent confirmation of that, which sounds more like an intimidation claim than medical fact).Skookum1 (talk) 15:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, there is an article on Francis, I suppose that's not surprising; I didn't know he was also associated with Marion Jones, though....Skookum1 (talk) 15:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Anabolic steroids}} template

BTW if you haven't already noticed, I made some brand-name listings and other notes on Template talk:Anabolic steroids.Skookum1 (talk) 13:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Pharmacodynamics / mechanism of action section(s)

Pharmacodynamics as a discipline covers mechanism of action. In all books I've seen the authors either use one or the other for a section, but not both. In this article the pharmacodynamics section has just a bit more general info on mechanism of action for steroids in general. Also, that section has some fallacies. AR receptors are of two kinds ARn (nuclear) and ARc (cytosolic). The way that section is written it implies the latter does not exist.

The two sections should be merged. Given the current content, the only question is how fancy you want the title to be. Xasodfuih (talk) 08:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Implausible story from the history section (now fixed in the strength improvement section)

In case someone needs further explanation for this set of changes:

  • The source for the original story was an addiction researcher's 1996 book
    • hardly an expert in sports medicine
    • no page number given
    • the paragraph in the wiki article initial cited a 2001(!) paper as the "eye opener", which a book published in 1996 couldn't have possibly cited. I was the one that changed it to the 1996 paper by the same author.
    • the 1972 paper that was claimed to have AAS == placebo was a 2 page paper in a journal not indexed by pubmed. The only place I found a full citation for that paper (Ariel, G.B., & Saville, W. (1972). Anabolic steroids; The physiological effects of placebos. Medicine and Science in Sports, 4, 124-126.) is mesomorphosis.com, and it's mentioned with a different summary. I strongly doubt that a 2 page paper in an obscure journal convinced anyone of anything at the time.
  • Hartgens and Kuipers (2004), p. 528 recount the story a little differently:
    • only the strenght gains were questioned
    • other papers by Hervey are baseline, the first of which was published in the Lancet, so it's plausible that they had an impact in the research community back then.
    • Hervey did find weight increase, but concluded "the weight gain produced is not normal muscle".
  • Finally, this whole story is rather obscure compared to the main developments of AAS, so I've tucked it the section that discusses weight gain/strength increase. Xasodfuih (talk) 15:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Over-generalizations from Rick Collins's study (PMID 17931410)

This is a US study of ~2000 users, but there is clear self-selection bias in the participants (those that frequented certain sites etc.) It cannot be said that clueless AAS ergogenic users don't exist, but the wiki article overuses the Collins study to give this impression. There are plenty more social studies with large samples published in more reputable venues, e.g. PMID 3210283 in JAMA (but this paper is rather old), which show different prevalence figures amongst adolescents etc. More work is needed to balance the article in the social surveys section. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

E.g., PMID 16009506 (2006) has much better methodology, was done in Germany amongst a comparable number of subjects, and shows a fairly different picture of ergogenic users. Clearly some balance and non-US perspective needs to be added to the article. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Sub-article proposal

Basically there's no way to balance the legal and social aspects related to non-medical use without writing more about those issue in various countries, or without deleting lots of US-only stuff, so I'm proposing to spin the bulk of that content into a sub-article and keep a WP:SUMMARY here (probably with multiple sections). Proposed title of sub-article Social aspects of ergogenic AAS use (see below better idea). Stuff to go in this sub-article:

  • social surveys of use prevalence in various countries
  • legal status in various countries, including
    • decriminalization movements
    • illegal trade and DEA-type busts
  • celebrities use: Arnold Schwarzenegger etc.

We already have separate articles for topics of narrow interest like Steroid stack, Steroid cycle, and Post-cycle therapy, so this shouldn't be too controversial.

In this article the pharmacodynamics/mechanism of action section badly needs expansion: no discussion of importance of aromatase and 5alpha-reductase, how comes a single receptor type is involved in both androgenic and anabolic effects yet different AAS have different a:a rations etc. Also, the effects section can be expanded a bit, I've got more material for that. The summary of doping with AAS (in competitions) needs a bit of expansion too; there's a full article on doping, but how central AAS are to doping is missing from this article (except from the lede, where I've added a bit). This article is already at almost 100K so this can't really be done without moving vats of argy bargy social/legal stuff elsewhere. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Ergogenic use of anabolic steroids should be a better title; using egrogenic makes it NPOV enough I think. With this title the sub-article could also include Steroid stack, Steroid cycle, which I fear are at the whim of the 1st deletionist because they have no references, and perhaps Post-cycle therapy as well, which isn't terribly well written or sourced either. Xasodfuih (talk) 04:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Looking at Creatine and Creatine supplements for an analogy, the split I'm proposing can work fairly well (except that AAS supplements would be a funny title). There's some redundancy between the two Cr articles, but the medical/scientific and ergogenic perspectives are fairly well separated (except perhaps for the stuff at the end of the two articles). Xasodfuih (talk) 09:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
I kind of like it, though it's not very "lay friendly"...."energy engendering" seems to sum up both the "faster, higher, stronger" (if not quite "bigger") aspect of sports use and some "recreational" use ("bigger engendering" - macrogenic LOL) and also the "pick me up"/"get up and go" aspect of andropausal therapy/anti-geriatric use for th 40+ crowd.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
I've started working on this. Hopefully it will be done by the end of this weekend. Fee free to give a hand. Xasodfuih (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Wanted: use in animal products (summary)

According to this paper AAS have been used (and banned in the EU) in animal husbandry for decades. The EU has been recently pushing for methods of testing the end products. (This is said in the intro, not the abstract) There's probably some article in Wikipedia dealing with this in detail, so a summary should suffice here. Xasodfuih (talk) 06:02, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Found nice history timeline of more recent events

In PMID 18599224 there's a nice full page time line for the ergogenic use/abuse. There are also a couple of pages of text just about the history, and it's more detailed than in most books on AAS. I'll use some of it to update the history which is only partially covered by the sciam article, which focuses on the pre-1950s. There's enough material in 18599224 for a FA-level history section in a separate article on Ergogenic use of anabolic steroids. Xasodfuih (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Another unsupported statement removed

The experiments with AAS in concentration camps are not supported by the source cited (SciAm). This is what the source actually says: "Since the 1940s androgens have been used to treat wasting conditions associated with chronic debilitating illnesses (such as those suffered by victims of Nazi concentration camps) and trauma (including battle injuries), burns, surgery and radiation therapy. " Removed [3], which twisted the above to "During the Second World War, German scientists synthesized other anabolic steroids, and experimented on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war in an attempt to treat chronic wasting." This cannot be inferred from the source. It might have well been the allies that treated Nazi concentration camp survivors with AAS. There's no mention of POWs in the source, and the source also doesn't specify the to which nations the battle injured belonged to or who treated them with AAS.

I'm not excluding the idea that Nazis did experiment with AAS in camps. Feel free to add this back if you find a plausible source that actually says so, and perhaps documents it. But the SciAm article doesn't do either. Xasodfuih (talk) 10:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I found other references saying that AAS were used both in Nazi experiments, and to treat camp survivors; updated article. Xasodfuih (talk) 11:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Summarize Ergogenic use

This article needs to summarize the Ergogenic use of Steroids. The information was moved to another article, but that doesn't mean that this article itself should not summarize the information from the other article. This is usually how it is done in other articles, where there is too much information. This info is relevant to this particular article, so some sort of summary about the controversies about Schwarzenegger et al. and ergogenic use etc. would be helpful I think. Uomo vitruviano (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do that. So far I've copied a bunch of stuff over to the sub-article, but I've only reduced/summarized the illegal trade section. More to come. Xasodfuih (talk) 18:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I've removed a bit from the history section as well. The Brown-Séquard paragraph was very specific to ergogenic use, and of little general interest, so I've moved the details over to the sub-article. More needs to be added to the history sections here and in the ergogenic use article. Since in the 2nd half of the last century ergogenic use took off, that needs to be mentioned. I'll write a more detailed account of that in the sub-article (have good source see above), and summarize it here. Xasodfuih (talk) 19:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Off-Label ?

In 'Development of synthetic AAS' what does 'off-label user' mean ? Please express your meaning explicitly. Andrew Smith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.50.77 (talk) 09:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Our off-label article is probably a useful one to read (I added a link to it from the article here). DMacks (talk) 20:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Synthesis

I have tagged the minimization of side effects section as synthesis. Most of those papers on treatments of side-effects did not really study them as side-effects of AAS use. E.g., the NEJM article (PMID 7477146) on Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in African-American Men with Severe Hypertension doesn't even once mention the use of AAS. Similar problems plague the other references. The only article about post-cycle AAS treatments is in Polish—PMID 11899857. So it's entirely unclear (to non-Polish speakers anyway) if any of those treatments help with side-effects of AAS. Xasodfuih (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this section is a serious concern, as it advocates potentially dangerous approaches and misuses its sources. The citations are to reliable journals, but the articles don't describe anything to do with anabolic steroid use. At best, this is misleading. Even the Polish article deals with treating withdrawal from anabolic steroids - that is, in users who quit, not in users who are "cycling" repeated rounds of steroids. MastCell Talk 20:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it's relevant information, but it needs to be properly sourced. Removing the whole section doesn't make much sense since, as someone who has studied this area, I can say that it is quite relevant to Anabolic Steroid use. The Anabolic steroid "withdrawal"(A misleading term in itself) is caused by lack of production of Testosterone in the body, and the drugs taken after steroid use are meant to jump start the production. This is true if a Steroid user is ending Steroid use forever or just ending it for several months. The result is the same. Uomo vitruviano (talk) 01:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Removing hypothetical or inconclusive info

It seems to me that if we are to remove information that is inconclusive which downplays the side effects of anabolic steroids, then we need to remove information which emphasizes the side effects of anabolic steroids when inconclusive. This article seems to be overwhelmingly "side effects", more so than many drug articles where such drugs have numerically more deaths or injuries associated with them. The stuff about "addiction potential" "Depression/Suicide" "Aggression" etc. Should all be merged into 1 single section on side effects and summarized. The disputed side effects mentioned as being disputed all in that one section. Uomo vitruviano (talk) 01:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Term "Adverse effects"

I think the term "Adverse effects" might be inaccurate since this is a very subjective term and not all of the effects listed in this area would be considered "adverse" by everyone using Anabolic Steroids. Depending on the person using the steroids, and the purpose, effects such as aggression can be seen as beneficial for increasing aggression in the gym. Effects such as deepening of the female voice and growth of body hair could be seen as beneficial by females attempting to go through a "sex change" and change their gender from female to male. I think a better, more precise, term is needed in substitute of "Adverse effects". I can't think of one right now. Uomo vitruviano (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

What just about "Effects"? The language surrounding these substances is so heavily POV as are many of the prevailing logics governing what's in print about them......any modifier on "effects" is likely to be POV in nature or otherwise stigmatize users/use....btw I've been renaming some of the "Doping" articles although the core one Doping I'm dithering over, as the definition there and the etymology need proper sourcing; once that's done the categories titled "doping in this or that" all need to be de-POVized. I've also considered, given the criticisms of Mickey Rourke re The Wrestler for "taking steroids in order to win an Oscar", that an article Use of performance enhancing drugs in the arts or a more specific Use of anabolic steroids in the arts might be an interesting apposite to the sport articles...."performance enhancing drugs in the arts" casts a very wide net, e.g. Bukowski and his booze, Burroughs and his dope (heroin, and any number of pop musicians), Lautrec and his absinthe, Bob Marley and his ganja..., as well as "actors who crank" (rumour had it the whole cast of 300, and not a few in the cast of Troy....).Skookum1 (talk) 14:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Acne is not a "serious health risk"

"Serious health risks can be produced by long-term use or excessive doses of anabolic steroids. These effects include ...acne..." The wording makes it sound like acne is a serious health risk. Last time I checked, nobody died of popping pimples. --moeburn (talk) 09:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Lancet article

I removed a passage which cited a Lancet article to imply that anabolic steroids were safer than alcohol and tobacco [4]. I feel this is a significant misrepresentation and misuse of the sources. Concerns include:

  • The study (PMID 17382831) and the cited popular-press source ([5]) do not focus on anabolic steroids. We're apparently mining one of the authors' findings and presenting it here without reference to their actual conclusions.
  • More importantly, it is untrue that the study found anabolic steroids "safer" than alcohol or tobacco. Look at Table 3 in the Lancet article. Note that the score for "physical harm" associated with anabolic steroids is 1.45, exceeding that of both alcohol (1.40) and tobacco (1.24). In other words, the authors specifically found that steroids were more physically harmful than either alcohol or tobacco, and we're presenting it back-asswards. Anabolic steroids did score low for addictive potential and social harms, which is why they "beat" alcohol and tobacco. In fact, in the legend to Table 3, the authors specifically state: "Anabolic steroids were ranked high for physical harm but low for dependence."

Let's be a bit more careful - this is the sort of misrepresentation that WP:MEDRS was intended to prevent. We have a study finding that steroids "rank high for physical harm" (higher than alcohol and tobacco) - but we cite that source to claim that steroids are "less dangerous" than those drugs. See the problem? MastCell Talk 16:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a typically Skookum1-style subjective comment, but if that study found that steroids were higher in physical harm than tobacco or alcohol, I believe it would be credulous to take those findings as having objective value. The difference between someone who has smoked even mildly for twenty years vs a "mild user" of steroids is written clearly in their bodies and health charts. Heavy use of tobacco and alcohol vs heavy use of steroids? - there's no proper study of heavy steroid users to be able to make any such comaprison, and I have yet to hear of people dying from cancers or heart disease at teh rates caused by tobacco, or the numerous complex health problems associated with heavy ingenstion of alcohol over a long period of time. In other words, how much credibility can such a study have when it finds something with a low associated mortality rate vs substances that have extremely high mortality rates?Skookum1 (talk) 16:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
If you wish to read the study, Skookum1, please e-mail me through my user page. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Sure, will do so....but I came back between the minute I posted that and since the minute later you posted yours, to comment that medical studies, one hopes, have to reckon with the fact that proper epidiomologies for steroid use(rs) can never be objective or complete until the stigma and opprobrium is lifted from them so users can be open about them with their doctors and actual epdimiological studies can be undertaken; at present any high figures associated with medical problems resulting from steroid use have to take into account that steroid users only seek the help of doctors when they need help, so only those who are having medical problems wind up in the doctor's chair and so find their way into any studies; this may be more true in the US and Canada than in the UK, where I understand doctors use the Hippocratic principle to confront apparent users and encourage them to be open about their usage; rather than being critical or moralizing, as North American doctors generally will, from the material I've seen there is an effort to deal with steroid use and steroid users in a less nanny-cop sort of fashion. But until actual figures on who uses and how much they use are come up with, any percentages or other similar figures that would allow estimations of greater/less harm are skewed by the subjectivity of the situation. I know this page isn't for medical debates, but I think - given the "thinness" of some of the sources and the way in which material in others has been mis-used (pro or con) - that debate over the value/validity of a given study is entirely in the ballgame; so yes, send me the study, I'll try to udnerstand it (being a non-medical person).Skookum1 (talk) 16:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
As I haven't read the study, I won't comment on whatever methodology it used. However, you have to e-mail me, you can't send attachments through the Wiki e-mail system. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Skookum1, as an encyclopedia we're constrained to report (accurately, and with proper weight) the actual findings of reliable sources. As an editor of nearly four years standing, no doubt you know this already. While you may be right that studies to date have inherent weaknesses caused by cultural stigma, that simply isn't something that can be addressed on Wikipedia in the absence of reliable sources to that effect. MastCell's point is that we fail, and spectacularly, when we attempt to present scientific findings as other than they are and in such a way that real risks are inaccurately downplayed. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 21:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
that's fine, but my issues have to do with the thin-ness of the science itself, not just in the soetimes-sloppy way studies have been cited and waht they've alleged to mean when they might mean something else; anti-steroid propaganda is full of all kinds of shallow mythology based on such materials; the other point is that, paraphrasing yourself "to present scientific findings as other than they are and in such a way that risks are inaccurately overplayed or exaggerated, or even fictionalized"....yes I understand we can't make editorial comments in-text about weak methodology and the lack of certain kinds of evidence; but that still infers that WP:Undue weight should not be placed on studies which are based on sketchy information; whether it's incidence of harm in relation to steroid use or only two sets of twins used to come up with widely-quoted allegations about harm (as was one case somewhere above). My main issue when I talk about this is the paucity of real scientific evidence because of the limitations on study resulting from the illegality against them, of which the stigma is only a symptom. How to relay that in NPOV and non-synthesis/non-OR fashion I don't know exactly but I continue to monitor this page out of public as well as personal interest because of my awareness of the methodological problems caused by legal censure.Skookum1 (talk) 01:36, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

FAR needed

Cleanup is needed here, (see Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing), or this article should be submitted to WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this redundant?

Anabolic steroids also have androgenic and virilizing properties,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "androgenic" means "virilizing". Unless the two terms are used differnetly in medical use?Skookum1 (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


Removal of word Nazi

In the list of Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, Germany was referred to as Nazi Germany. I removed this because I think it is irrelevant in the context to add the political nature of the country while naming it. We do not refer to Switzerland as Neutral Switzerland, nor would we call Italy or Russia forexample Communist Russia or Fascist Italy in this context. The explanation for Nazi involvement in this subject is later explained lower in the section and provides the necessary detail. If it is considered important to further expand the involvement, surely it should be done by a devoted heading? Feel free to change it back, it's only my opinion. Frup (talk) 03:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Valid opinion, though there is a Wikipedia article for Nazi Germany (and for Communist Russia and Fascist Italy). I think having Germany in this context gives the reader more detail as to the time and place these innovations took place in a single word, since "Nazi Germany" is a common English name for Germany under the government of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party. I believe that the original inclusion of Nazi also comes from the source cited. --Yankees76 (talk) 05:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Addition to external links

http://st.eroids.com would make a good addition to external links section, as it shows perspective on the topic not captured in this article. The "insider's story", is just as good of a source when looking for an objective view, as the current, much more technical - but unconnected article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Errorid (talk • contribs) 10:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you read our external links policy? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Second graf of Anabolic_steroid#Routes_of_administration: "...it has more irregular prolonged absorption time and greater activity in propionate, enanthate, undecanoate or cypionate ester form." Should that be "regular" instead of "irregular"? Tom Reedy (talk) 20:07, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

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Kidney effects

"Kidney problems

Kidney tests revealed that nine of the ten bodybuilders developed a condition called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a type of scarring within the kidneys. The kidney damage in the bodybuilders has similarities to that seen in morbidly obese patients, but appears to be even more severe.[95]"

This sentence appears misleading. [95] studied 10 steroid using body builders who have severe kidney damage and noted that 9 out of the 10 had FSGS. It said nothing about the prevalence of kidney failure in steroid users. The sentence seems to suggest that steroid users have a high risk of kidney injury. [95] does not support that idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.34.207.79 (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Anabolic steroids and testicles

In this edit, an IP editor removed text that appeared to claim that the androgenic and virilizing properties of anabolic steroids cause growth of the testicles, with the comment "I deleted (increased testicle size from the initial summary because they would normally decrease testicle size, as they mimic the effect of testosterone which inhibits hormones FSH and LH secretion which usually have a trophic effect on testicle size." I think the IP editor is correct on this, as steroids are notorious for this effect: see [6], or search for "steroid testicular atrophy" in general. -- The Anome (talk) 09:45, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

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Usage section copied without attribution

It looks like the contents of the Usage section have been copied verbatim to the Anabolic-androgenic steroids abuse article without attribution. @Msrainbow: Typically such attribution may be provided in the edit summary. For example, "Copying usage information from Anabolic steroid article". At least that way there is a trail back to the original contributors. Kaldari (talk) 06:58, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

The "Neuropsychiatric" section too strongly implies psychologic problems caused by anabolic steroids

There is conlifcting evidence on whether anabolic steroids causes "roid rage", with a study of 10,365 men finding insignificant increases in aggression due to anabolic steroid use (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25170826), rather it seems to be caused by abuse of other drugs. The section strongly implies that anabolic steroids causes bad mental effects, even though there is not equally strong evidence for this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Albaqualba (talk • contribs) 16:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

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