Thanks Scrub, I appreciate your input.
I think Scrub put it well, but for a through bitch slapping of the “no proof” arguement. It does not directly implicate steroids, but rather looks at mortality among the population that is believed to abuse them. Actual evidence from the International Journal of Sports Medicine:
Increased premature mortality of competitive powerlifters suspected to have used anabolic agents.
Parssinen M, Kujala U, Vartiainen E, Sarna S, Seppala T.
National Public Health Institute, Laboratory of Substance Abuse, Helsinki, Finland. miia.parssinen@ktl.fi
Misuse of supraphysiological doses of anabolic steroids is claimed to have serious side effects. The aim of the study was to determine the mortality, and the cause of premature deaths among a group of subjects who are strongly suspected to have used anabolic steroids for a non-medical purpose over several years. The mortality of 62 male powerlifters placed 1st-5th in weight series 82.5-125 kg in Finnish championships during 1977-1982 was compared with the mortality of population controls. The mortality during the 12-year follow-up was 12.9% for the powerlifters compared to 3.1% in the control population. By 1993 eight of 62 powerlifters and 34 of 1094 population controls had died, thus the risk of death among the powerlifters was 4.6 times higher (95% CI 2.04-10.45; p = 0.0002). The causes of premature death among the powerlifters were suicide (3), acute myocardial infarction (3), hepatic coma (1) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (1). These findings add to the growing amount of evidence of an association between anabolic steroid abuse and premature death, and support the view that measures to decrease AAS misuse among both competitive and amateur athletes are justified.
Or if you prefer it in convenient link format:
Beetson
I think there is one glaring omission from the summary of the results of the study you quote and that is the effect of lifting heavy weights itself. All the powerlifters had one indisputable thing in common and that was they all lift very heavy! It even says that these guys are only suspected of using AAS. I think this article is scaremongering but I do think AAS puts you at increased risk but how much is AAS and how much is it the weight lifting?
Weight lifting can harm heart
3/12/2003
High-intensity strength training may lead to a potentially deadly condition called aortic dissection, in which the heart’s major artery tears.
That’s the conclusion of new research by a team of Yale University experts that appears in the Dec. 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The link is: http://www.health24.co.za/news/Heart_Cardiovascular/1-958,25714.asp
I wasn’t joking when i said weight training could cause heart attacks and i think this could also explain why so many strength athletes die of heart conditions.
http://www.meso-rx.com/articles/koert/testosterone-and-cocaine.htm
this is where I got the info re: cocaine
As for Testosterone and the effects on the heart, I urge you scrub to do a search on t-mag for articles r/t the heart i.e. ‘T and your Ticker’
Anyway I’m not saying that by doing steroids there are no risk to the heart at all, but I am saying that the people who died of heart attacks had other risk factors involved as well I.e. diet, genetics, their party lifestyle of drinkin and drugs, their life on the road and in a business of high stress where your job is on the line if you do not go out and perform well on a nightly basis… Yes folks being in the wrestling business is not a piece of cake… Why do you think lately so many wrestlers have opted to walk away! P-22