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News: December 7, 2009
Surprised? Black market steroids usually mislabeled
December 7, 2009The 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 labeled or dosed correctly."
Smith and his colleagues looked at 217 studies that had analyzed the chemical makeup of illegally obtained anabolic steroids.
The researchers found that almost a third - 30 percent -- of samples others had analyzed 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.
There is also "more evidence accumulating that the likelihood of having a bad reaction with severe psychiatric symptoms including mania, hostility, or aggression, is linked to higher dosages," he said.
One in five of the samples was contaminated with heavy metals such as tin, lead, and arsenic. Such metals can have toxic effects on the nervous and digestive systems, as well as the muscles.
Would steroid users "be willing to risk serious legal consequences and prosecution for a steroid either so underdosed as to be worthless, or contaminated with heavy metals?" asked Smith. "These questions deserve to be asked, and as clinicians we owe our patients an informed and fully accurate discussion."
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December 12, 2009 | Researchers Find New Drug To Shrink Breast Cancer TumorsBoston (SmartAboutHealth) - Researchers have discovered a new antibody drug that has the ability to shrink breast cancer tumors that other drugs have failed to impact. The study was carried out by researcher Dr. Ian Krop and colleagues at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. What they discovered is that a hybrid drug, T-DM1, was able to shrink or at least stop the growth of HER2-positive breast cancer tumors. The drug is a combination of the ...
December 11, 2009 | Fewer dollars for smoking preventionEven as states pull in billions of dollars in tobacco settlement money - part of which is typically used to fund anti-smoking programs - they're slashing the amount they spend on such programs by 15%. Altogether, states will spend $567.5 million on anti-smoking efforts in the 2010 fiscal ...
December 9, 2009 | Smoking Kills Millions Worldwide Every YearTobacco use kills at least 5 million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don't take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. In a new report on tobacco use and ...
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