Article on the dangers of anabolic steroids from the UK.

The most interesting parts of the story are below for your enjoyment :-)

Seven out of 10 men using “hardcore heavy lifting gyms” regularly use steroids, research shows.

Online buyers don’t know what they are getting, with almost 40% of all ’roids used in parts of South Wales now deemed fake.

Experts told the Wales on Sunday these stark stats are just the tip of the iceberg for a craze that has seen boys as young as 16, who are desperate to bulk up, resort to taking steroid tablets made for cattle.

Ignorance results in many being duped into buying counterfeit steroids from foreign internet sites. Mr Lowes said vials of liquid sometimes contain part steroid and part baby oil or cooking oil. Sometimes they contain no steroid at all.

But he said the greatest danger is posed by real anabolic steroids, both tablet and liquid form, bought off the internet. As the drugs often come without any instructions or with instructions in a foreign language, teenagers trying to out-bulk their friends and match the Hollywood image are risking their health by taking huge doses of the synthetic hormone.

“People will inject as soon as they finish working out in the gym because they think they’ll get more benefit as their blood is circulating. What they are actually doing is forcing dirt and sweat into their bodies because they haven’t swabbed the skin.”

They are also injecting synth oils, an inert pharmaceutical substance, which help their muscles expand even further beyond the limits they can achieve with steroids.

“Muscle growth is genetically limited,” he said. “But they get around that by injecting synth oil which expands the muscle fibres.

“Some of the synth oils also contain silicone to artificially plump up the muscles and I know of a 16 year old who was using that.”

Professional bodybuilders who thoroughly research the steroids they use will inject up to three millilitres a week of the drugs into their buttocks in six or eight-week cycles and then go six to eight weeks without using the drugs to allow their bodies to recover.

Each cycle can cost around £100, but younger, inexperienced users may pay out far more as they will use much larger doses – up to 10 millilitres – for longer periods.

A BOUNCER from Bridgend told Wales on Sunday he is addicted to being big.

The 24-year-old, who asked not to be named, said he has been using anabolic steroids since he was 17 and wishes he had never started.

But he said he is not able to stop as he cannot face losing his 20-stone frame and the status it gives him in work and among his peers.

He spends around £100 on each six-week cycle, during which he will inject one-mil doses of Cypionate three times a week.

“I started taking it because I wanted to be big. I thought that’s how a man should look.

“I’m now 20st and 6ft and if I went down to 15st I think it would fry my head.”