A quick thought for today:
I think we all know that steroid use is probably much more prevalent that we’ve been led to believe.
And while the average person may only think of larger-than-life bodybuilders as the only people who use steroids, the educated/experienced person has a pretty good hunch that celebrities, rock stars, hollywood actors (and actresses) athletes, and ‘average sized’ male models all have a good chance of having some sort of experience with steroids.
Now, the point of this post isn’t on the ethical, moral or legal debates about steroids. Rather it’s about the health effects.
It is well assumed that long term steroid use has a causal relationship to negative markers of health.
The assumption being that steroid use CAUSES the negative health effects.
This is the fact that health care experts, governing sports bodies and the mainstream media trumpet as the main point in their anti-steroids argument.
However, my thought is that there is an alternative hypothesis worth exploring.
The hypothesis is this:
Long-term steroid use is associated with negative health outcomes, but it is not causal.
It is having and maintaining a muscle mass that is far outside the realms of normal for your specific height that is causally linked to disease.
In other words, it’s the massive amounts of extra muscle causing the diseases…the steroids are just what allowed you to have that muscle.
The interesting thing about this hypothesis is that it opens up the idea that small dose steroids my not be bad for you, and that having massive amounts of muscle (even if somehow obtained naturally), could actually be associated with disease.
A bit of a re-think, especially in our current “more muscle = more health” way of thinking.
I’m definitely not an anti-muscle person (You can see Anabolic Again for proof of that), but I do find it interesting after seeing John Barban’s Transformation that a natural lifter can look very muscular while still having an amount of muscle that would be considered ‘normal’ for is height. Heck, John even has a normal BMI in these pics ==> http://johnbarban.com/transformation-pictures/
BP
