In hundreds of studies, researchers link anabolic steroids on the one hand to cardiovascular disease on the other. Average users tend to brush these types of studies off the table too quickly. So before you make a purchase on steroids Canada online, talk to your doctor about the possibility of heart ailments.
What the skeptics say about steroids and heart disease
Nevertheless, there are still users, traders, and experts in the steroids environment who firmly deny that there is a connection between anabolics and cardiovascular disease. “Those cases of deceased athletes are tragic, but by themselves, they don’t prove anything,” they say, for example. “Heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure are just common. You can count on your fingers that bodybuilders also succumb to these disorders.”
The skeptics who have mastered the matter are also unimpressed by the studies. “Animal studies and test-tube studies say little about humans,” they say. “And the human studies are very small. You cannot draw firm conclusions from it.” And with that, frankly, the skeptics have a point. Or maybe we should say, they had a point with that. Because the study that researchers from the American Massachusetts General Hospital recently published in Circulation is of a heavier caliber than the studies that have appeared so far.
Steroids users versus natural athletes
The researchers studied 140 men aged 34-54, all of whom fanatically trained with weights on a daily basis. Of these, 86 men had been using anabolic steroids for at least 2 years. The average user in this study had already been on the cure for 7 years, and in that period had put 366 grams of androgenic steroid hormones into his body. That is an amount that doctors have to sigh, but which many users in 2017 will say is not that bad.
The other 54 study participants had never used steroids before. They did train with weights, just as intensively as the users. The researchers had made sure that the control group of non-users resembled that of the users in as many ways as possible.
The cardiologists then determined the heart condition of the study participants. They determined, among other things, how much oxygen-rich blood, originating from the lungs, the heart muscle could push into the body. According to many studies, anabolics reduce that ability. The muscle enhancers make the walls of the heart muscle thicker and stiffer, reducing the heart’s capacity to supply the body with blood.
Among the non-users, there were a few where that power was below par, but those were the exception. In the vast majority of non-users, the picobello heart was fine. The results for the users were less attractive. Most of them were in the problem zone.
It should also be noted that it mattered whether the users were taking a cure during the study or were in between two courses. In the latter case, the hearts of a dozen users functioned below par but still worked acceptably for most users. Apparently, the heart can partially recover during the clean period. You immediately wonder what this means for steroids users who continuously use substances and are never completely clean again, but good.
Read also: How Lifting Weights Can Improve Your Heart Health
Clogged blood vessels
The situation was more problematic with the crucial blood vessels that supply the heart muscle with blood. The researchers discovered that the blood vessels clogged more often in the users than in the non-users. If those blood vessels no longer work properly, the risk of a heart attack is very high.
Yes, there were users with clean coronary arteries. But there were proportionately fewer than the researchers found among the non-users. And yes, there were also non-users with clogged coronary arteries. But the majority of the study participants who had bad coronary arteries were indeed users.
In fact, the most important predictor of bad coronary arteries was the total number of years that the users had taken the treatment. The more there were, the more likely their blood vessels were in a bad condition. Use of steroids as a way of life? That means a shorter life.
Curb the use of steroids
The researchers hope that their findings will help governments and doctors do their best to curb the use of steroids. They have apparently given up the idea that steroids users themselves will care about their research, no matter how good it is. That’s understandable. Perhaps they underestimate the users of anabolic steroids. The group is more varied than is often thought.