Several types of drugs are used to prevent some of these issues –  Nolvadex, to prevent breast growth, Statin drugs to address cholesterol issues, and the use of HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) to increase testicular production of Testosterone. These drugs still fall short of completely eliminating the risk of using excessive amounts of hormones for extended periods of time, so users attempt to limit the use, both in dosage and in cycle length, in order to avoid these short comings. Even with all of this preparation, it is absolutely crucial for anyone using steroids to consider one very important, unavoidable side effect of anabolic use, and one that is silent, only detectable during blood tests, and can cause severe physical health problems, including heart attack, stroke and even death.

Anabolic steroids can lead to higher Hematocrit levels which can lead to high blood pressure and excessive thickening of the blood.

Anabolic steroids increase red blood cells, which leads to an increase in the amount of oxygen that can be delivered to muscle. This adds a certain athletic advantage. If left unchecked, however, Hematocrit levels (the name for the test used to determine the amount of red blood cells present in blood plasma) can reach dangerous levels, causing elevated blood pressure, and increasing blood thickness, which can lead to disruption of blood flow in major arteries and vessels, leading to heart attack and stroke.

One steroid, known as Equipoise, or Boldenone Undecylenate, has gained a particular reputation for increasing Hematocrit much more than other steroids. While this is true to a certain extent, it is clearly established that all androgenic/anabolic hormones increase RBC( red blood cell count). Even the “safer” steroids such as Anavar have a strong proclivity towards raising Hematocrit.

In order to monitor one’s health, a regular blood work panel must be done at least once every quarter year. In addition to hormone levels, cholesterol, glucose tolerance and blood pressure, one must also measure Hematocrit to ensure that levels have not reached a dangerously excessive amount. In adult males, a normal range for Hematocrit will be between 42% to 54%. Anything above 54% is an indicator of potential cardiovascular and circulation damage. In women, although anabolic steroids will always be ill-advised for this part of the human population, the numbers are even lower – 38% to 46%.

So what steps should a user take when they discover they have high hematocrit? First and foremost you should be working closely with your doctor to monitor these numbers and he or she will have your next step planned should you find these numbers climbing above the safe range. For those users who still continue to neglect to work with a physician while monitoring their hormones, it is essential to stop the use of the hormones immediately. If one is permanently on hormones, as in the case of HRT, it may be necessary to lower the dosage to no more than 100mg per week of a long estered hormone such as Testosterone Cypionate. If Hematocrit is reaching above 59%, it will be necessary to undergo phlebotomy treatments, where excess blood is drained, which allows Hematocrit levels to return to normal. When levels reach unsafe numbers, most blood donation centers will refuse to allow users to donate. Whatever the case may be, high Hematocrit levels are an issue that must be addressed as soon as possible, by eliminating the offending agent, and finding a way to quickly reduce blood volume.

A few very important things to keep in mind while maintaining a healthy Hematocrit level. Maintaining hydration is essential. A dehydrated athlete will quickly increase the thickness of the blood, and the percentage will go up considerably. Always maintain proper hydration. If you exercise frequently, make sure you consume even more water than is normally recommended for average individuals. Naringin, a component of grapefruit, has been shown in studies to reduce excessive hematocrit, while at the same time having no effect on those with healthy Hematocrit levels. The only drawback to this option is that Naringin inhibits a class of enzymes in the liver known as CYP450. This can cause very high levels of certain medications that are normally broken down in the liver by this enzyme. While the idea might seem appealing, to increase levels of a hormone or fat burning drug, for instance, the truth is there are great consequences to inhibiting this enzyme and can cause physical harm. Of course, the last and final way to ensure you are maintaining proper Hematocrit levels is to abstain from using anabolic steroids. If, however, you decide to use these substances please understand that the greatest risk comes in higher dosages, used for extended periods of time. Many modern users of anabolic steroids have come to believe they are exempt from risk factors to their health by continuing to use high doses of androgens without any intended break at any point. They falsely assume that they have all of their bases covered by utilizing ancillary drugs to control other side effects. Unfortunately this is not the case, and certainly one of the biggest concerns to your health is elevated Hematocrit.

Steroidology recently sat down with Don Hooton to discuss the foundation’s work and just how the bodybuilding community can help in keeping steroids away from growing adolescents.

Don Hooton and his son Taylor before Taylor’s tragic suicide which was brought on by steroid-induced depression.

Let’s start at the beginning.  Your son’s tragedy that lead you to start the foundation…

My youngest son Taylor committed suicide in 2003. Before he reached the hospital he was already dead. The police were in our home and the chief detective came up to me and said, “Mr. Hooton, did you know Taylor was doing steroids?” And it was clear with what the officer told me that he immediately made a connection between the steroids that they found in Taylor’s room and the suicide. That caught me completely off guard. You hear about steroids with professional baseball players and bodybuilders but I had no concept that steroids were capable of causing that kind of depression. In the weeks and months to follow, I reached out to try and understand what in the hell had just happened, how did I loose my boy?

And what did you learn? What did you find out?

I managed to talk with some of the worlds’ medical experts, doctors, who are familiar with these drugs and they began to explain to me the physiology, just how you can connect the dots between steroid use and depression.

Dr. Michael Scaly, who is one of the experts who serves the bodybuilding community, has a term for it called anabolic steroid-induced hypogonadism. Its when a male takes anabolic steroids, his body body stops producing testosterone and relies totally on the steroids to supply that testosterone.

You take a young man like Taylor at 17 who quit cold turkey from using steroids. Well as we found out, there is a period of time, medical experts say it can be up to a year, but during the first four to six weeks following a male stopping using steroids, the body is not producing testosterone and severe depression can set in and that’s exactly what happened with Taylor.

Besides depression, what are some of the other major health risks for teens using steroids?

Well the biggest one we talk to the kids about is cardiovascular problems – enlarges heart, high blood pressure, increased risk of stroke, good cholesterol goes down, bad cholesterol goes up. About every two years USA Today publishes an updated story on professional wrestlers and the extraordinary number of professional wrestlers who have died over a period of time from cardiovascular problems. I think the number is these wrestlers are 12 times more likely to die from cardiovascular problems than the average adult male. And the biggest common denominator here is their propensity to use anabolic steroids. So what you got here is a group of males that are otherwise healthy adults – they work out all the time, they watch their diet, their bodies are their careers, just like bodybuilders. Yet in the end, an extraordinary number of them die and a lot of people believe this is related, directly or indirectly, to the heavy usage of steroids.

That’s the kind of information we need to be equipping our young people with. They’re ultimately the ones that are going to have to make the decision [whether to use steroids or not]. You’re not going to police this out of the high schools, so the only thing we know how to do is to provide them with honest, accurate information so as young kids they can make an intelligent decision and its not just information from guys in the weight room telling them there is no risk to this stuff because there certainly is.

What advice would you give to parents who find their child using steroids? What is the recommended treatment to help a teen get off steroids?

Well, they always need to be under the care of a medical expert, a doctor. They need to be seeing their family physician if they discover their child is using steroids – especially the young males. It applies to everybody, but particularly the males. They need to seek out a doctor, however, that has some knowledge or experience with this. Sadly, as we learned, and still learn as we travel the country talking to physicians, there are very limited, scarse, medical doctors who are trained or have any experience dealing with these drugs.

One of the things we are trying to do be a catalyst to make happen is to get the medical community to draft and circulate medical protocols for steroid use. There are no medical protocols that exist that instruct a doctor how to identify, how to treat, how to ween a steroid user off of the steroids and get them back to a normal condition. As long as steroids have been around this is still a relatively new phenomenon for the medical community.

That’s amazing that the medical community is so behind. Bodybuilders have known about post-cycle therapy for a long time. It seems that doctors and even endocrinologists don’t have the same knowledge that long-time steroid users have.

Don Hooton working at a Taylor Hooton Foundation event with the Baltimore Orioles.

Well, I just want you to stop and think about what you just said. What you just stated is an extremely accurate reflection of the reality of what’s going on. The very sad state of affairs, especially for young people, is the fact that this is all anecdotal. There are no real medical studies on steroid abuse, they  would be unethical. The typical dosage for anabolic steroids for a legitimate medical prescription is in the range of about 5 to 10 mgs a day, then you taper off. I’ve talked to a couple of the professors who study and follow people in the bodybuilding community and they tell me that a typical bodybuilder is taking as much as 3000 mgs of steroids a week. Now that would be unethical for a medical doctor to study – people taking super doses of drugs, way beyond what they were medically designed to do. All the results of people using these extraordinary amounts of these drugs come from the guys in the gym talking with each other about how their cycle worked and what they experimented with. This is absolute lunacy, besides being illegal, by the way.

So you’re saying that information about steroid use coming from bodybuilders or other steroid users is not good enough.

I still continue to come under severe attacks online from members of the bodybuilding community for the crusade we got going on for young people. I’ll hear from some of these quasi experts (mostly anonymously, rarely do they use their real names) and they’ll say things like, “What did the idiot do? Didn’t he have these liver panels done? Didn’t he go through a post-cycle therapy?” Guys, we’re dealing with 16-year-old kids who are having to buy cheap street drugs to begin with. Do you really expect them to be self medicating? They’re encouraged to use illegal drugs and then criticized because they didn’t follow some self-created post-cycle therapy that you can’t find in any medical textbooks – they’re only found in some chat room on a bodybuilding board somewhere out there on the internet.

Well, then what would you like to see from the bodybuilding community so that it can help the cause of teaching young people about the medical dangers of steroid abuse, rather than be a hindrance?

Fair enough. I had one of your peers who runs another bodybuilding board call me about five years ago and we had an excellent conversation. It went something like this. He said, “Don, can we just for a moment agree to disagree about what a 30-year-old male who is doing bodybuilding chooses to put into his body and just set that aside a minute and focus on the kids and come to an agreement to agree that no adolescent should ever be getting near these drugs.” Even the bodybuilders, the intelligent ones, know that kids shouldn’t be fooling with these drugs, even if they justify in their own minds that at 25 or 30 years old that they are old enough to make their own decisions. But these kids, loading themselves up with these excess amounts of testosterone at 15, 16 years old are playing with dynamite.

The bodybuilding community needs to be responsible. When a kid comes up to you in the gym and asks you with all of this admiration “how did you get that big?,” instead of selling them steroids, you need to take a responsible position and encourage these kids to stay away from it until they have completed their growth cycle and maybe they’re in their 20s. That’s what a responsible human being, an adult, would do when they are around kids.

I recently read a study from the University of Minnesota that showed steroid use is up among teens. The study also showed that steroid use was up among non athletes, that teens are using these drugs for pure reasons of body image. Testing and the fear of being of being caught in sports has always been the deterrent for steroid use for athletes. What is the best way to discourage steroid use among those teens who may never be tested?

We believe the best approach is through education. It’s educating young people about the real dangers of these drugs. Now a responsible, knowledgeable bodybuilder or steroid user will have to admit that there a number of proven side effects. Now they’ll argue with me on some, but it’s everything from the emotional changes to depression or roid rage, the cardiovascular problems that are going to develop over a time period of using these drugs and a number of other physiological, physical problems that come along with using these drugs. But it begins with being honest with these young people about what these are and what they can do to you, what the risks are.

Again, if you get to be 25 years old and you’ve chosen to take the risk of steroid use and you’re desire to have a better body image or you want to compete in the bodybuilding competitions lead you to take those risks, so be it. But it certainly doesn’t help to stand there in the gym and deny, like we’ve run into so many times, that there are no negative side effects to using these drugs. There is some level of adult responsibility for trying to deter our young people away from this behavior.

Not all bodybuilders are irresponsible by any means.There are a group of bodybuilders who recognize that there are a number of accepted, very risky side effects that go along with these drugs. All of the cocktails that get mixed, the stacking, the cycling, the post therapy that they give themselves, by definition tells you of the severe risks that go along with these drugs. Let’s be honest with the kids about that side of the drug use.

A lot of times, we’ll do these lectures [on the risks of steroid use] and someone will talk with another guy at the gym about them and then the guy at the gym says, “Oh, that’s a lot of bullshit. Look at me. I’m healthy and I’ve been using these things for 15 years and nothing’s happened to me.” Well, there’s a lot of people who smoke for 15 years and it doesn’t kill them either but that doesn’t mean the cigarettes weren’t dangerous.

Another question about deterring kids. It seems that since the crackdown on athletes like Barry Bonds, who may never get into the Hall of Fame, and Lance Armstrong who had his Tour de France titles stripped, that a stigma has been built among athletes and the public in general about steroid users – that they are cheats and don’t deserve to be seen as heroes. Have you seen any of this in your work? Is this kind of public shaming working?

There’s alway a debate that goes on on whether it encourages or discourages. I am of a school of thought that those role models encourage the use. As tough as most these guys are and want to argue on a Website like this or on other boards about how tough they are, its interesting when they get caught with this stuff- whether it’s Lance Armstrong, whether it’s Barry Bonds, whether it’s Mark McGuire or any of these guys, they commit perjury, they lie, they deny the behavior. Well if you are such a big man and you are such a steroid proponent and you really believe that this stuff is healthy and good for you, why don’t you step up and admit it? You know, all what the kids see is the results. They see super home run potential or they see a super big guy working out at the gym. Were dealing with kids who look up to role models at the local gym. Taylor was buying his drugs from a bodybuilder at a local YMCA. Whether [a local bodybuilder] is the role model or whether the role model is Mark McGuire, it’s really not a problem as long as you don’t get caught. And for 99 % of the high schools across the country there is no penalties, there are no testing, there are no consequences that come along with using these drugs other than the risks they are taking to their body and their mind and the money they are going to have to fork out for the drugs.

That leads to another question. Because there is no testing for high school students, and a lot of colleges for that matter, what is the best way for parents and coaches to recognize steroid use among young people so that they can intervene?

Well the first thing that has to happen is to recognize how widespread this usage is. We are getting ready to release a study we did with the help of the Gallup organization and the University of Massachusetts that is going to show just how little awareness there is among the adult population about how widespread this usage is amongst the boys and especially unaware that there are girls using them, too.

So the first step is to have the adult influencers – teachers, coaches, parents – to wake up and realize how many of of our children have gone down this path. Secondly, we got to talk to our kids. There was a study done by Proctor & Gamble, a marketing study, that showed that 85% of our children report they never had an adult – a coach, a parent, a teacher – talk with them about why they shouldn’t be using these drugs. So you’ve got a group of impressionable kids who are getting messages from their role models – whether it’s at the gym or whether it’s the professional athlete, or Olympic athletes. They’re getting all these messages about how well these drugs work, which they do by the way, and they’re getting almost virtually no messages on why they shouldn’t be using these drugs – the risks and the dangers.

Many of the kids we talk to don’t even realize that they are illegal drugs. They think, “What can be wrong with a ‘performance-enhancing drug?’” Just think about what we call them.

Do you think the new advertising push we see for testosterone replacement on TV could be influencing kids as well?

That one upsets me severely. Kids see this stuff and think, “What could possibly be wrong with a drug Dad’s using?” It is our hope that the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration and others will get involved and put a stop to a lot of this testosterone replacement stuff, which we believe, and a lot of doctors we work with believe, is illegal in and of itself. In the sense of whether it is legitimate use in the strict medical sense of the word to write a prescription and not just another vehicle for steroid sales.

Teaching kids about the dangers of steroids in Chicago.

How might your message have to be changed as newer drugs are developed and become available? It’s not just anabolic steroids anymore. Labs seem to be making new PEDs all the time.

You’ve made a huge assumption in your question. Let me guess. What you have in your mind’s eye is what most people do – that there are guys in white coats developing these drugs and instead of selling them out through a hospital or Wallgreens, these drugs are finding their way into the gym or onto the athletic field. That is not what is happening. What the DEA tells us is that almost 100% of the drugs that are being sold on the street originate in China. And you can call those guys scientists if you will, but who the hell knows what kind of scientists are developing this stuff?

It gets converted into a powder, shipped over here in powder form, a local bodybuilder-type takes delivery of these powders, mixes them with oils – sesame seed oil, Wesson oil. I met a football coach in Canada come up to me after one of my lecture and said, “Mr. Hooton, I’m ashamed to admit it but when I played college football, I used steroids and my supplier in Waterloo, Canada was mixing the powder with Armor All.” The point is, who the hell knows what is in those vials?

You would think that the professional athletes or professional bodybuilders might, underline might, be acquiring their drugs from a prescription from a medical doctor and the stuff will have come from Merc or from Abbott Labs or whatever and it may very well be what I call legitimate steroids. But the overwhelming majority of what is sold on the streets and at the gym is counterfeit steroids – almost all of it. And it’s buyer beware. It says it’s Deca Durabolin, it says its Anadol – who the hell knows what is in those substances. One of the things you’ll find if you go out on the bodybuilding boards, just three or four years ago, there were a group of bodybuilders who when they realized their stuff was coming from China, they thought “Maybe possibly this stuff could be contaminated with some foreign substances,” and they had a group of these liquid vials tested by labs and found that 21% of the substances that were being sold on the street here in the US were contaminated with lead, mercury, zinc, tin or arsenic. The kids need to know this information so at least if and when they develop some malady that’s related to ingesting heavy metals, at least they knew that up front.

What are your concerns for how to deal with new technologies in performance-enhancing drugs? It’s not just anabolic androgenic steroids now. There are insulin growth factors, HGH, etc. How does that play into dealing with the message to young people who might be swayed to take one of these new drugs because they are told they are safer that older drugs like testosterone?

It’s a huge problem. And there’s another dimension to your question about the new drugs vs. the existing drugs. The new drugs are being designed to not be detected by today’s testing regimen. As limited as steroid testing has been, today’s drugs are being designed to not be detected by the tests. But you’re right, it’s now insulin growth factor, its human growth hormone and for a parent who’s lost a child, it’s scary as hell. And it is going to be a battle for folks like us with our limited resources to try and keep up with the information so that we can relay accurate information to our kids so that they know enough to stay away from this stuff. Hopefully some of our more responsible leaders in the bodybuilding community will help us to do that.

Any final thoughts you’d like to see in this article? A statement you’d like our readers to take away?

This is about our nation’s children here. My battle is not with the bodybuilders that are reading this article right now. I want them to think about their younger brothers and for those who are older, their own children. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old is when many of these kids are beginning to use these drugs. From that University of Minnesota study, 5.9% of boys from the sixth grade through the 12th grade used steroids and I would just ask your readers to please help us ensure that these kids who are still in puberty, still developing, to help us keep these kids away from these drugs until they are mature adults and are in a position to make an informed decision with the best benefit from all the information that is available.

Herbal Supplement

There are also a lot of natural products out there today that claim they can elevate a man’s natural testosterone. They have misleading labels that are full of false promises. Using these products can seem like a good deal to a lot of consumers because they promise all the gain of testosterone replacement without the cost of seeing a doctor to monitor the therapy. They also promise that their products avoid the side effects involved with taking testosterone without the supervision of a medical expert – which is true but there are also no real results from taking these products either.

Testosterone replacement is usually the only option for men with hypogonadism, or low t. This can be in the form of creams or gels, injections and the ever increasingly popular pellets (testopel). For many men testosterone replacement is very successful at achieved the desired results of enhanced energy, mood, libido, sexual function and strength and vitality.

A man’s testosterone can also be boosted with fertility drugs, namely clomid or HCG. Depending on a man’s goals and age this can be used in conjunction with testosterone replacement or as sole therapy. Clomid is an oral pill often used for women undergoing fertility treatment and HCG is an injectable.

In order to know what is right for you find a doctor expert in ant-aging and hormone manipulation who is prepared to use any and all of these therapies.

Dr. Gary Bellman, M.D., is a Board Certified Urologist, interested in Testosterone replacement and men’s heath. He attended medical school at McGill University, did a fellowship at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and has taught at UCLA for many years. He is currently is private practice in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. For more information on Dr. Bellman, visit his Websites: www.socalurologyinstitute.com and  ”http://www.uroantiaging.com. For questions or other inquiries, you may contact Dr. Bellman at gburomd@yahoo.com.

But what happens now? Can the seven-time Tour winner regain any of his former glory? Judging from the majority of the pundit reactions to his confession to Oprah Winfrey, the answer would be a resounding “no.” But there are some avenues that Armstrong may take to get back into the good graces of the cycling, triathlon  and marathon worlds he once dominated. None of which are a sure thing and can lead to his own personal demise as well as the demise of the people he worked with to juice up for his Tour de France titles.

Confession

Armstrong has completed the first step in playing the game of the anti-doping crusade against him – confessing his use of performance enhancing drugs to the world. And although the verdict by most people who watched him spill the beans on America’s favorite confessional couch ranged from “too little, too late” to “he didn’t bleed enough,” taking that media-lit walk of shame is a necessary task in the long quest to kiss enough butt to get back in with the likes of US Anti Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart or the bureaucrats at the International Cycling Union (UCI).

The biggest and most substantial complaint about Armstrong’s confession was that he refused to admit to running a Scarface-style “doping ring” that forced his innocent team members into a wretched life of faster speed and more endurance. In case you haven’t been following the Lance Armstrong saga as closely as we here at Steroiology have, Armstrong was officially booted from cycling and had his titles stripped after members of his own team came out and said he forced them to take PEDs if they were to be on his team. Their testimony gave the USADA the ammo it needed in sinking Armstrong’s ship, while at the same time ensuring themselves a return to the sport of cycling after a few years of banishment.

Armstrong denies he coerced his team into the seedy life of blood-doping and EPO injections and there is little evidence to doubt him. Just the testimony of some underlings who were promised a deal in exchange for the torpedos needed to down Team Armstrong’s leader. The USADA made it abundantly clear they wanted Armstrong’s head on a platter and likely helped teammates George Hincapie, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis concoct the story that they were just innocent cyclists forced into doping so the agency could look “fair” when it only suspended them while banning Armstrong for life. Are we to forget that these men also made a living off of the winningest team in cycling? Still, Armstrong’s odds don’t look good when its his word against 11 former friends and colleagues.

Another aspect of the Armstrong “confession” is that he said he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong. He basically said he doped to compete in a tough sport and that if he didn’t do it and win, that someone else would have doped and won. Which is probably true but not the wisest thing to say to a moral crusader like Oprah who has a history of burning her interviewees in public even after the interview is over, which is what happened to Armstrong over his refusal to admit to “wrongdoing.”

The Big Pay Back

To say that Lance Armstrong has a PR problem is like saying the Super Bowl or the World Cup is just a game. Armstrong’s biggest problem right now is not the fact that he lied about using PEDs during his reign as cycling’s champion. It’s that he aggressively sued anyone who accused him of it. This above all other aspects of Armstrong’s demise will be the hardest for him to overcome – and the most expensive. He will have to pay back every dime he won in litigation, plus attorney’s fees and who knows what else. And that’s just to the people who he sued. He will have to pay back sponsors who backed him and paid him despite the doping allegations. He will probably be sued himself by biographers and other people who believed him when he said he wasn’t using PEDs and published books and articles praising him, now to the detriment of their reputations.

Livestrong and prosper

Once Armstrong’s paid debts and public apologies to those he sued leave him a much poorer and much more humble man, he will still need to somehow make himself over as one of the redeemed. For most disgraced public personas, simple charity work or the creation of a foundation for, let’s say, cancer would suffice. But for Armstrong, whose already successful cancer foundation Livestrong is trying to distance itself from its founder, this is going to be the equivalent of a Triple Lindy as far as PR moves go. You see, for all the good work the Livestrong Foundation has done for cancer survivors, cancer research, etc., those previously gotten Brownie points haven’t seemed to help Armstrong weather the shit storm of his doping scandal. In fact, it has seemed to make it worse because he is now seen as betraying the very charitable foundation he started. Armstrong is going to have to do something charitable and along the vein of keeping kid athletes off steroids to show his commitment to PED-free sports.

This is why the EPO’d bird sings

Confessions, paying back money earned from libel suits and charity are all good and necessary steps for Armstrong to get back into sports and compete again. But the most obvious hoop he must jump through (and the one that really brought about this mess in the first place) is to turn evidence and testimony on the doctors and labs that supplied him and his team with their PEDs. After all is said and done, you only can’t walk away if you are the only one left in a criminal conspiracy. And Armstrong has plenty of information about the whos and wheres and whats of the PED manufacturing business and just how it ends up in the hands of athletes and how those athletes avoid detection. This is the information that the USADA wants, along with the FBI, DEA and, likely, Interpol. Kicking someone out of competitive sport is one thing, but confiscating millions of dollars from labs and doctors who are part of a nefarious drug ring makes for the kind of big headlines that get people promoted or budgets inflated.

So, good luck Lance Armstrong. You have a lot of work cut out for yourself if you want to make a comeback of any kind. Of course, if you want to just say fuck it, we’d love for you to write columns here at Steroidology.

Although rare, it is not unheard of for there to be no players inducted into the Hall of Fame. The last time it happened was in 1996. However, this year’s donut hole of inductees is seen as different because of the clear issue with such star players as Bonds, Clemens and Sammy Sosa who easily have the stats but have been tarnished with allegations of steroid use throughout their careers.

A player must receive 75 percent of the voters, mostly sportswriters and former players, approval to be inducted. This year, the closest person to get in was Craig Biggio,  a catcher and second baseman for the Houston Astros, who received 68 percent. In comparison, Bonds got only 36 percent and Clemens got only 37. Sosa only received a paltry 12 percent vote.

Evidently players have a much different viewpoint than sports writers when it comes to the issue of how steroid use should effect wether or not a plyer is inducted into the Hall of Fame. In speaking about his close-but-no-cigar vote for this years induction, Biggio also defended the star players who were snubbed this year for their respective steroid controversies, saying he’s have voted for them if he had the chance to.

“Barry Bonds was the greatest hitter that I’ve ever played against … and Roger was one of the greatest pitchers of all time,” Biggio said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I would have yes, I think those guys are Hall of Fame players. Barry and Roger, their numbers speak for themselves and what they did on a baseball field speaks for itself.”

It is unclear how future voters will see players like Clemens, Bonds and Sosa, but if precedence says anything about it, it doesn’t look good. For seven years, homerun hitter and admitted steroid user Mark McGwire has been kept out of the Hall of Fame. This year he got only 16 percent of the vote.

Myostatin binds to muscle cells and causes a drop in the cell’s mitochondria (a necessary part of a cell’s energy production). This leads to atrophy of the muscles because of the lack of energy in the cells. In healthy and young people, this cycle of myostatin depressing the mitochondria is a necessary function of muscle cells in order for them to regenerate new cells. However, people who are sick experience higher levels of myostatin and the related atrophy. As we age, myostain levels increase as well.

“If we block myostatin from binding to cells, then muscles won’t waste away and we can then mitigate the effects of aging and chronic diseases,” said Associate Professor Ravi Kambadur from the NTU School of Biological Sciences.

In addition to regulating growth and loss of muscle, myostatin is also responsible for deciding whether the body will burn either stored fat or available carbohydrates. When myostatin is present in the cells, the body will burn available carbohydrates and continue to store fat. However, when myostatin is blocked, the body will burn fat.

“In near future, myostatin blockers could increase fat utilisation in the body and give you the benefits of exercise, without actually doing intense physical activity,” Professor Kambadur said. ”This would be a good alternative treatment for people who are unable to exercise, such as those who are bed-ridden or are in cancer treatment, who are most at risk of massive muscle loss.”

A myostatin-blocker could be the answer to the obesity epidemic and be a cure for diabetes caused by being obese. Although a myostatin-blocking drug is years from development and commercial or medical availability, the NTU study has revealed some helpful information that can be used today – poeple who exercise regularly have a natural low level of myostatin.

On a positive note, anabolic drugs started getting the respect they deserve in the form of testosterone replacement therapies. You can’t turn on a TV at night now without advertisements gushing about the benefits of taking testosterone for your health. Testosterone is even being tested as a sex-therapy drug for women. These were the major developments in the world of anabolic-androgenic drugs, but there were many more developments and research done on these drugs in 2012. Here’s a quick rundown on some steroid news stories that might have slipped through the cracks:

Green tea can mask the pee

Can green tea be used to hide steroid use from piss tests?

Researchers at London’s Kingston University found that people wanting to get away with taking performance-enhancing drugs should start drinking green and white teas. According to the researchers, a compound found in green and white tea (but not in black) called catechins inhibits the enzyme in the body that releases testosterone into the urine. ”The catechins stop enzymes tagging molecules for excretion so the kidneys don’t recognize them as needing to be removed and leave them circulating in the body,” explains lead researcher Professor Declan Naughton, from the University’s School of Life Sciences. “We found that green and white tea could inhibit the enzyme by about 30 per cent. The levels of catechins in a strong cup of green tea matched those we used in our experiments.”

Unfortunately for athletes on PEDs, the effect is only good for masking testosterone in he urine – blood and hair tests will still get you busted. On the bright side, the research also suggests that the body will keep more of its natural testosterone after drinking green and white tea because it isn’t excreting it in the urine.  ”It’s like having extra testosterone without actually taking any,” Professor Naughton said. ”By not excreting it from the body, athletes could potentially increase their testosterone levels for improved performance.”

New PED test focuses on IGF-1

In a program funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), three British universities have developed a new test for athletes suspected of taking performance-enhancing drugs. The new test, developed by scientists at the University of Southampton, King’s College London and University of Kent at Canterbury, is a response to the wave of new protein peptide drugs available today. It works by measuring two proteins in the blood – insulin-like growth factor-I and the amino terminal pro-peptide of type III collagen. Both of these proteins increase in response to growth hormone. The new testing method isd an improvement over previous methods because it is able to detect misuse of human growth hormone over a longer period of time compared to previous methods

The test has already had an effect on international bodybuilding sports. In September, two power-lifters competing in the Paralympic Games were given two year suspensions after the test discovered evidence of growth hormone. ”Continual improvement in testing science is fundamental to the global anti-doping movement, ensuring that sophisticated dopers are caught and those at a tipping point are deterred,” said  UK Anti-Doping Chief Executive Andy Parkinson. ”I am delighted that this UK developed test, which my team has been closely involved with, was used at the 2012 Paralympic Games to such good effect.”

Tweaking how glucocorticoids interact with androgen receptors may be the key to future weight loss drugs.

Manipulating hormone receptors key to weight loss

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine reported in the September issue of Chemistry & Biology that they discovered that naturally occurring steroids called glucocorticoids hamper the androgen receptors that the body uses to block fat accumulation. ”This has implications in this era of an obesity epidemic,” says senior author Dr. Michael Mancini, from Baylor College of Medicine. “If you can reduce glucocorticoids, you might be able to upregulate, or increase, androgen receptor activity and regulate fat storage.”

Dr. Mancini’s team discovered the link between glucocorticoids and and androgen receptors while searching for genes or signals expressed by human fat cells. Their study revealed that androgen receptors inhibit the early stages of fat maturation when the body deposits fat for storage. Androgen receptors, which normally bind with androgens like testosterone, are key in directing muscle differentiation, regulating muscle mass and increasing lean body mass. Glucocorticoids block the receptors from carrying out these functions and directly lead to the creation of fat deposits in the body, especially in the stomach area. The research points to future weight loss treatments that would regulate the activity between glucocorticoids and androgen receptors.

Performance enhancers viewed as more OK for academic than athletic pursuits

College students think it is more unethical for athletes to use steroids than for students to pop stimulants like Adderall.

A research study published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors  found that young male college students think it is more unethical for athletes to use steroid drugs than it is for them to use stimulants while studying. The study also revealed that students who used stimulants were even more inclined to be biased toward an athlete’s use of performance enhancers and less inclined to see anything wrong with their own drug use to give them an edge in studying.

“This is consistent with the idea that using performance enhancers is viewed as less ethical in the sporting world than in the academic world,” said the study’s lead author, Tonya Dodge, PhD, of George Washington University. “Interestingly, the students in our study considered off-label prescription drug use as more effective for success than using steroids.”

The study was done at Pennsylvania State University, where around 1,200 college freshmen answered a questionaire that compared two different scenarios – one about a track and field athlete who needed to catch up on training and another about a student who needed to catch up on studying. The athlete used steroids to get in shape, the student used stimulants to cram for midterms. The athlete won his race and the student scored high in his tests. The participants in the study were then asked to judge which person was more the cheater and if they themselves had ever used steroids or stimulants, such as Adderall or Ritilan, without a prescription. They were also asked if they had played high school sports.

The results of the questionaire showed that the participants significantly viewed the athlete on steroids as more the cheater than the student on stimulants. Less than 1 percent of the participants reported using steroids, while 8 percent admitted to using stimulants. Also, students who admitted to stimulant use were especially more inclined to view the athlete as a cheater and so were students who had played high school sports. Overall, the participants viewed performance enhancing drugs in sport as cheating while using performance enhancing drugs for learning as OK.

“One reason students may have felt Adderall was more necessary than steroids for success is because people may believe intelligence is less malleable than athletic ability. This view of intelligence might have led the students in this study to believe that taking Adderall would increase intellectual capacity,” said Dodge. “This research can help mold future prevention efforts around off-label prescription stimulant use in the academic world.”

With the recent craze that has been going on due to the growth of mixed martial arts, thanks to leagues like the UFC, there has been a growing number of everyday people who have gained an interest in Jiu-Jitsu, Maui Thai, and mixed martial arts generally.  Everyday people have dropped their regular gym memberships to sign up at their local Jiu-Jitsu and MMA academies.  I can’t blame them.  Jiu-Jitsu and MMA in general are not only great for your health, but a very fun way to get or stay in shape.   When speaking in terms of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise you can get the best of both worlds blended together in Jiu-Jitsu.  Maui Thai is also a very high endurance sport. These two  can bring one better physical health, anti-depressive properties, and an overall boost in confidence that one can apply in his/her daily life.  But as with all physical activity, the most important part of it is not in the dojo or the gym, it’s in the kitchen.  In this article, I will give a general layman’s explanation of how to approach your diet while training in MMA.   There is a lot of malnourishment going on with practitioners of high endurance sports and I hope this article will help set some people straight.  We will cover the basic macro nutrients like carbs, fats, and protein and I will touch up on some supplements that can help along the way.

Protein

I cannot express how important it is for high endurance athletes to get the right amount of protein in.  Protein is the building block of muscle in your body.  If you dont get enough in you will not gain muscle and more than likely lose it.  If you get too much in your kidneys will be given a hard time and you creatinine levels might go up, causing concern from your doctor when you do blood work.  Now there are alot of ratio to bodyweight figures out there that confuse the heck out of people.  I have seen the 1.5g protein per bodyweight bit that is the standard in the community.  When you dont have a professional nutritionist figuring out your protein intake this isn’t the worst of choices.  The issue comes with a guy who is 280lbs and 35% bodyfat.  This ratio of 1.5g to pound of bodyweight isn’t total bodyweight but lean bodyweight.  Since people get pretty confused about how to figure out their lean bodyweight, I have given the formula below.

The first thing your going to need is your bodyfat. There are a few ways to get this done:

1. Calipers: Your local gym should have calipers and a bodyfat test available

2. Dexascan: Check your local schools and gyms and see if you can get this process done

3. BodPod:  This is my favorite way of getting my bodyfat tested. You can usually find one at your local university

4. Hydrostatic bodyfat testing: This is the old school way of doing it and thought to be the most reliable way of getting your bodyfat tested.  Again, check with your local university to see if its available

5. When all else fails, getting on a bodybuilding forum and posting pics can usually get you a pretty decent estimate if you talk to the right person.  I would personally speak to a vet or the board nutritionist.  They usually deal with people regularly and can give a decent guess to what your bodyfat might be.

Once you have a bodyfat percentage the rest is actually pretty simple, all you need is a calculator.  Here is a step by step example of how your get your lean bodymass.

Lets say your stats are that you weigh 220lbs and have a bodyfat percentage of 18%.

You can turn the bodyfat percentage into a decimal point (in this case 18% would become .18) and subtract that by 1.00 (so 1.00 – .18 = .82).  Your answer would be .82 (because .82 + .18 equals 1).  Then you would simply take the .82 and multiply it by your bodyweight of 220lbs.  So 220 x .82 = 180.4.  Your lean body mass is 180.4.

Now that you have your lean body mass, take that and multiply it by 1.5.  Your total protein intake in this case would be 270g which is reasonable.   In all my years as a nutritionist I have yet to put a male weighing more than 135 lbs on anything less than 200g protein a day.  Also, rarely have I taken a client above 350g protein.   Please keep in mind that less than 20% of protein should come from supplements.  You should be following a whole foods approach and getting your protein from lean choices of meats.

Carbohydrates

A high endurance sport means high energy requirements.  Those who do high energy sports should not be looking into very low carbohydrate diets like ketogenic diets like the atkins approach.  Ideally as a practitioner of MMA you dont want to bring your carbs down lower then 200g a day spread evenly between at least 4 meals (you should be eating 6 meals a day).   If your looking to lose bodyfat 200g is a good place to start.  If the loss of bodyfat is not your main concern I recommend a minimum of 300g carbs daily for energy use.  The foods you choose should be complex carbohydrates throughout the day and a simple carbohydrate right after training with your whey shake.  Ideally you want to get at least 50g carbs post workout from simple carbohydrates and the rest of your day should pull from complex carbohydrates.  Try to spread your carb intake evenly throughout the day, but keep carbs out of your final meal (meal 6) unless you worked out immediately before.  There is research that shows carbs before bed lower natural growth hormone productions, a big no no in your goals!

Examples of complex carbohydrates:

Oats

Brown rice

Sweet potatoes

Red Potatoes

Quinoa

Examples of acceptable simple carbohydrates

A white bagel

White rice

dextrose or maltodextrine

waxy maze

Fats

People freak out when they think about fats.  They believe the intake of fats will only make them fatter.  This is far from the truth when you pull from the right fat sources.  Foods like avocados (my fav!), organic peanut or almond butter, extra virgin olive oil, cashews, and fish oil to name a are essential to you daily needs and should be a part of your diet.  The rule of thumb is that the higher your carb intake the lower your fat intake should be.  As you bring down your carb intake, your fat intake goes up to make up for the calories.

Here is an example:

If you need 3000 calories for your diet, your macros might look like this:

300g protein

300g carbs

66g fats

If you wanted to lower your carbs, your fats would have to go up to take the place of those calories:

300g protein

200g carbs (we have lost 400 calories here)

77g fats (we have added about 400 calories here, remember that fats have more than twice the calories then protein or carbs)

I recommend you take in a little fat with every meal except your post workout nutrition and take in the larger sum of fats in the last meal of the day where it will do the most for you.

Veggies

A sport would not be called a high endurance sport if it did not take alot of endurace.  Green leafy veggies have been found to promote endurance levels in athletes.  If you watched the UFC hall of fame champ Randy Couture put a beating on Tito Ortiz years ago you may have noticed that Randy had a lot of gas in his tank even though Tito was much younger than him.  Randy was on a high greens diet, and all high endurance athletes should follow this approach.  Get those veggies in guys!  Spinach, celery, broccoli, asparagus.. if its green its good to go!!!  I recommend a total of 6 cups of veggies a day for MMA practitioners!

I hope this article has helped you get a better grip on what’s necessary in the kitchen when training in the wonderful sport of MMA.  Look for more articles in the near future!

For more information on dieting and nutrition for people with aggressive workout routines, visit www.3jsdiet.com.

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A recent study by the University of Minnesota found that steroid use and muscle supplement use among teenagers is going up. The study, which surveyed 2,700 students in the Minneapolis School District found that 5.9 percent of boys and 4.6 percent of girls had used steroids.

“In some of the more harmful behaviors, like steroid use, we had about 4, 5, 6 percent of young people saying they’re involved in this,” said Marla Eisenberg, a University of Minnesota researcher in an interview with CBS Minnesota. The study showed that steroid use was spread across athletes, non-athletes and teens of all different races. “Asian American youth had higher rates of steroid use in particular”

The survey’s questionare asked students about their views on increasing their muscle size and how or if they had tried to achieve a buffer look. Besides steroid use, the survey discovered that 34 percent of boys and 21 percent of girls used protein shakes to build muscle and that teens commonly ate and exercised for the sole purpose of building muscle. Eisenburg readily blamed media stereotypes for the reason teens turn to steroids and supplements for muscle growth. “We’re seeing a lot more athletes, and celebrities, and male models that have bigger and much more tone and buff looking figures. We’re seeing them everywhere.”

Steroid use is both dangerous and unnecessary for teens. It can lead to severe emotional problems, aggravated acne, permanent gynocomastia and even impotence and skeletal development issues. Teenagers are already pumped with testosterone naturally during puberty and it is important for the body to develop its natural way of keeping its anabolic and androgenic balance of testosterone and estrogen. Adding testosterone, or even protein peptides, to a growing body can have severe effects and there are very few doctors who have the knowledge of treating the damage that can be done.

It is unclear why the researchers chose to include protein shakes in their study. Whey protein is just a concentrated form of dairy that delivers high doses of branch chain amino acids that feed the muscles after workouts and encourage them to grow. There is really nothing unnatural about whey protein. The researchers may have only wanted to gauge the attitudes of students on taking supplements that make you stronger – if a student sees protein shakes as a shortcut to a better body, they may eventually see steroids the same way.

If the study of students in an state like Minnesota found rising steroid use, imagine what a study of border states where steroids are easier to find on the black market like California, Arizona, Texas, etc. would find. It is obvious that better education about muscle science is becoming more necessary as teen desires for a buff body type become more pronounced, while at the same time steroids become more available.