Steroids are a substance used to increase muscle strength and power beyond the natural limit of our bodies.
Steroids help with the development of male sex characteristics, but they can come with many side effects, including acne or high blood pressure, among others.
Steroid abuse has become more prevalent in recent years as people want to develop a more muscular shape and more notable characteristics.
However, despite the advantages of steroids in terms of muscle growth, there’s still concern about their safety. Prolonged use could lead to liver disease, among other health problems. This is your ultimate guide to the bad effects of steroids, what they are used for, and much more.
What are Steroids?
Steroids are laboratory-made hormones that are initially produced by the human body. The body’s natural testosterone production in men increases during puberty to promote male traits like muscle growth and facial hair. Anabolic steroids are synthetic forms that act similarly and encourage muscle growth, which is why users take them.
But, they have more severe side effects on organs such as the liver or heart since they’re not only produced by our bodies for their natural function anymore.
Besides muscular growth, steroids are sometimes prescribed by medical professionals to treat certain conditions and reduce inflammation. For instance, they are often used to treat Ulcerative Colitis temporarily.
What are Steroids Used For?
Testosterone is a hormone that people produce in both men and women. The levels increase during puberty to promote the development of masculine traits such as body hair growth, deeper voices, or sex drive for men.
Female bodies also produce steroids but at a smaller dose. The primary steroid the human body can produce is testosterone.
That being said, the amount of steroids produced naturally is not enough to benefit our muscular growth – the main reason why gym fans and athletes take them.
For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger used steroids during his years as a champion bodybuilder.
Apart from that, as discussed previously, the pills also treat medical conditions. According to a report by the British NHS, the primary diseases treated with steroids are:
- Arthritis
- Asthma
- Eczema
- Addison’s disease
- Different types of allergies
If you were to buy testosterone cypionate, the effects above could be expected in some instances.
As you understood, the chemical is used for many reasons, but let’s go deeper and see the most common bad effects of steroids in the following paragraphs.
5 Bad Effects of Steroids
If you want to get bigger or stronger, one of the most common ways to increase your testosterone levels is with steroids – usually the answer for many people.
While some complications vary from men to women, the bad effects of steroids remain the same for everyone, and we’ll list them here below.
You May Lose Your Hair
One of the most inconvenient side effects of steroids is that you can become bald – and once you’re bald, there’s no going back.
The main reason the chances of hair loss are increased is that the levels of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) are boosted. This eventually makes your hair follicles become thinner and thinner until they disappear entirely.
Tendon Ruptures Happen
While tendon ruptures happen with regular workout sessions at the gym, taking steroids makes them even more frequent.
The National Institutes of Health studied this bad effect of steroids on five patients, and, in all of them, tendon ruptures occurred. Scientifics concluded that corticosteroid therapy was the reason.
If you happen to experience tendon ruptures while taking steroids, it is an average side effect, and your joints will become inflamed and eventually be painful and swollen.
Taking Steroids Increase the Chances of Heart Attacks
While tendon ruptures are frequent and not that serious for the long term, heart attacks are, and they’re not to be underestimated.
According to WebMD, the risk of heart disease is increased by 2.5 times in individuals consuming high doses of steroids compared with those not taking any. Users taking 7.5mg of prednisolone each day are at a much higher risk of cardiovascular diseases for the following five years.
Out of all the bad effects of steroids, this is one of the most serious and should always be taken into consideration when taking them. Lastly, high blood pressure, diabetes, and weight gain were also observed in patients taking steroids.
You May Develop Aggressive Behavior
If you’ve taken steroids at least once in your life, you know that developing more irritated and aggressive behavior is expected. This is a natural character trait of people with high testosterone levels, but it is even more noticeable in users taking steroids.
In addition, personality traits are even more perceptible when individuals take steroids, for instance, antisocial people or borderline. This aggressive behavior, also known as roid rage, is more fights, verbal aggression, and violence in general.
Other than that, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that steroid users are more likely to develop future Psychiatric Disorders than non-users.
Infertility is a Risk
If you’re willing to have children in the future, you may want to control your steroids intake. Infertility is another of the side effects that you could experience. The quality of the sperm dramatically decreases, and you may not be able to have kids, even when trying your hardest.
That being said, the sperm quality generally becomes normal again after four to twelve months of taking steroids. Of course, there are some exceptions, and some users might see this timeframe increase.
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Steroids are a trendy solution for developing a bigger muscle mass. But there are bad effects of steroids you should know and we’ll cover them here.
