We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. How performance-enhancing drugs helped create the new male body standard. Timothy says he had nothing to lose during the pandemic, so he took steroids. It was, of course, a little more complicated than that.
In , when much of his industry was still struggling to figure out how to return to work, he watched a documentary about steroids being trafficked into the United States. It was his tipping point. Even before the documentary, Timothy had been kicking the idea around in his head. As a gay man living in Los Angeles, he has been inundated with images of male physical perfection. He saw every action star and every influencer sporting the same impossibly cut look.
He wanted a heads-up. Timothy wanted to get muscles quickly, to feel more attractive, to see his arms, his back, his chest finally show off all the work he was putting them through. After he took a three-month cycle of steroids, his muscles swelled and he got exponentially stronger. He felt he looked better. He was having more sex. Not just more sex, but sex with guys he thought were hotter. He was booking more jobs. Seven television jobs, he told me. Historically, these drugs made news when it came to Olympic and professional athletes like Lance Armstrong , Mark McGwire , and A-Rod using them to achieve peak superhuman condition.
In those high-profile sports cases, the implication is that those athletes were cheating. These drugs are dangerous and their long-term effects are understudied, experts say, but with what they offer, those concerns seem to get lost in the shuffle.
We see their effects on the action heroes of mainstream movies, on the fitness influencers of Instagram, maybe even on the people lifting next to us at the gym.
PEDs are becoming mainstream. Anabolic steroids can build muscle, increase strength, and reduce body fat, especially in people who are working out two or three times a day, in a relatively short time.
These steroids are a synthesized version of naturally occurring testosterone; when taken in heavy doses, steroids shut down organic testosterone production in the body.
That appeal, he said, can often seem to outweigh the health risks like the increased possibility of a stroke and potential cardiovascular problems. The use of human growth hormone HGH for performance enhancement is even newer than that of steroids. HGH is a protein that naturally occurs in the body, but, just like testosterone, it decreases over time. This is one reason that the older you are, the harder it is to maintain muscle.
Its conventional medical use, which began in the s and was synthesized and FDA-approved in , was primarily for children who have been diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency and were smaller in stature. Doctors prescribe HGH to literally help these children grow. Doctors are still studying the full effects of HGH, but they believe its performance-enhancing properties can lead to body fat reduction and muscle building and recovery.
WADA is best known for monitoring drug testing in the Olympics, among other competitive sporting events. Rabin said that a popular method today is to combine the two; taking HGH with a steroid regimen allows someone to take lower doses of steroids — perhaps decreasing the side effects or dependency — while enhancing their effectiveness.
What worries Pope, Rabin, and their colleagues is how effective these drugs are and how little we know about their long-term effects. Still, Amy, who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym in order to speak candidly about what she knows about PED use in Hollywood, found herself in a car veering onto the shoulder, asking her date if it could wait. Amy, who has been working as an actress and in entertainment for 20 years, explains that she is good at being discreet and protecting her friends.
Keeping quiet about use, she says, is part of the job. For male actors especially, getting a part in action and especially superhero movies is the way to become a star. With a few rare exceptions, that means your body has to look superheroic: abs so sharp and defined that their valleys could catch water, torsos like pyramids turned upside down, shoulders that look more like boulders, butts that have their own gravitational pull.
The public notices the gains. Sure, I can believe that. But what else are they doing? Joe Retaliation , Terminator Genisys , and Neighbors. Williamson said he had personally used PEDs in the past while competing but no longer does. According to a report from the Hollywood Reporter , fellow celebrity trainer Happy Hill estimated that roughly 20 percent of actors use PEDs to achieve their physiques. I asked Williamson about that estimate, and he said he believes the number has gone up due to increased industry demands.
It is prescribed privately by Harley Street clinicians who assist in anti-ageing. But it also can enhance muscle growth and promote weight loss by preventing carbohydrate from being turned into fat. Also, it has been shown to increase cartilage growth and repair — there is no shadow of a doubt that users will have an increased healing rate.
Yet doctors warn that growth hormones are illegal without a licence — those found supplying them can face 14 years in prison and an unlimited fine. Even more worryingly, users of the hormone could be dicing with death.
Nearly all of the Kigtropin entering this country is smuggled in or bought online with no control or guidance on how to take it. Dealers want you to take as much as they can sell you. Cycles of hormone use used to be around eight weeks long and then some time off — now people are taking them solidly for two to three years. Inexperienced syringe users can slash an artery and bleed to death, create blood clots, or hit a nerve and risk permanent paralysis.
Long-term use can, according to Graham, lead to carpal tunnel syndrome the compression of nerves in the wrists, which causes incessant tingling , raised blood sugar levels which can trigger Type 2 diabetes , heart failure and — in excessive doses — gigantism, the disproportionate growth of body parts.
Users also have no guarantee of what they are buying, according to drug seizure expert Allen Morgan. From a law enforcement perspective it is a grey area, as police are brought up on a culture of going after street drugs and they simply have no grasp of how the bodybuilding drugs market works.
Hart says that supplies could also be tainted: "They are finding trace elements of metals in phials being shipped in from all over the place, as any wannabe dealer with a metal drum in places like China and Russia is attempting to make them on the cheap. Human growth hormone is a hormone that has an anabolic effect. Athletes take it to improve muscle mass and performance. However, it hasn't been shown conclusively to improve either strength or endurance.
Erythropoietin is a type of hormone used to treat anemia in people with severe kidney disease. It increases production of red blood cells and hemoglobin — the protein that carries oxygen to your body's organs.
Taking erythropoietin improves the movement of oxygen to the muscles. Epoetin, a synthetic form of erythropoietin, is commonly used by endurance athletes. Erythropoietin use among competitive cyclists was common in the s and allegedly contributed to at least 18 deaths. Inappropriate use of erythropoietin may increase the risk of stroke, heart attack and blockage in an artery in the lung pulmonary embolism. Diuretics are drugs that change your body's natural balance of fluids and salts electrolytes , which can lead to dehydration.
This loss of water can decrease an athlete's weight, which many athletes prefer. Diuretics may also help athletes pass drug tests by diluting their urine and are sometimes referred to as a "masking" agent. Diuretics taken at any dose, even medically recommended doses, predispose athletes to adverse effects such as:. Many athletes take nutritional supplements instead of or in addition to performance-enhancing drugs.
Supplements are available over-the-counter as powders or pills. Creatine monohydrate is a supplement that's popular among athletes. Creatine is a naturally occurring compound produced by your body that helps your muscles release energy. Scientific research indicates that creatine may have some athletic benefit by producing small gains in short-term bursts of power. Creatine appears to help muscles make more adenosine triphosphate ATP , which stores and transports energy in cells, and is used for quick bursts of activity, such as weightlifting or sprinting.
But there's no evidence that creatine enhances performance in aerobic or endurance sports. Weight gain is sought by athletes who want to increase their size. But with prolonged creatine use, weight gain is more likely the result of water retention than an increase in muscle mass.
Water is drawn into your muscle tissue, away from other parts of your body, putting you at risk of dehydration. It appears safe for adults to use creatine at the doses recommended by manufacturers. But there are no studies investigating the long-term benefits and risks of creatine supplementation. Some athletes use stimulants to stimulate the central nervous system and increase heart rate and blood pressure.
Common stimulants include caffeine and amphetamines. Cold remedies often contain the stimulants ephedrine or pseudoephedrine hydrochloride.
Energy drinks, which are popular among many athletes, often contain high doses of caffeine and other stimulants. The street drugs cocaine and methamphetamine also are stimulants. Although stimulants can boost physical performance and promote aggressiveness on the field, they have side effects that can impair athletic performance, including:. Do performance-enhancing drugs boost performance?
Some athletes may appear to achieve physical gains from such drugs, but at what cost? The long-term effects of performance-enhancing drugs haven't been rigorously studied. And short-term benefits are tempered by many risks. Not to mention that doping is prohibited by most sports organizations. There is a problem with information submitted for this request. Sign up for free, and stay up-to-date on research advancements, health tips and current health topics, like COVID, plus expert advice on managing your health.
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