About Women and "Banned Substances"

By Bryan Haycock MS

As many of you have heard, a female American Olympic lifter recently was awarded a gold medal in place of her silver, after the Bulgarian competitor who beat her tested positive for a "band substance". At the time of writing this I have yet to find out what exactly she tested positive for, so I will assume it was an androgen, or steroid, as most people know them by. Besides that, several of her male Olympic lifting counterparts were also disqualified for testing positive for banned substances so chances are pretty good she was "well oiled" too.

I thought I would share a recent study published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. In this study they profiled two groups of women, those who were steroid users and those who professed not to use steroids.

The study revealed some interesting things. First of all, their urine tests rarely matched what the girls had reported using. Someone not familiar with steroids and how most people get them might think that the girls were simply lying. Although they didn’t give anybody lie detector tests, I would highly doubt that any of the girls knowingly lied about the drugs they were using.

Truth of the matter is, because testosterone has been criminalized here in the United States, the most common way of getting it is to buy it on the black market. The term "black market" is simply a way of saying you get it from people who can’t sell it legally. The black market is not regulated so you often find counterfeit products as well as fakes. Counterfeits are simply inactive ingredients sold as something else. Fakes are often the real thing, but they are put in a container with a counterfeit label. They are kind of like buying a really high quality watch that said it was a Rolex but in fact was not. You still get a great watch; it’s just not a real Rolex. Then again, often times the person selling the steroid will "water it down" with a less expensive androgen, or simply lie about what is really in the container and deceptively sell you a cheaper and often less effective hormone. With all this in mind it is easy to see how their urine tests didn’t match their self-reports. If you think about it, buying testosterone or other hormones on the black market is a risky proposition. You really don’t have any idea what is really in the bottle unless you have it tested yourself (not likely). At least with the state run programs of Eastern Europe, the hormones were/are supplied buy reputable drug manufacturers through government channels and there was no question about the safety or potency of what was being administered to the athletes. That isn’t to say that the athletes themselves had any idea what they were being given. More on that in a future issue…

One other interesting thing they observed was that the girls weren’t always aware of some of the side effects they were experiencing. Or, they were in denial about some of the side effects. For example, several of the girls that denied any effects their hormone use had on their voices, had in fact very deep voices. The changes in a woman’s voice doesn’t happen over night, nevertheless, I think many women simply refuse to acknowledge that they now talk like teenage boys, especially when they consider themselves "light users".

Back to the Olympics, I kind of feel sorry for those athletes in state run programs who get disqualified for using hormones. Most of these athletes really don’t have any choice in the matter as they simply do what they are told, "or else". They are then reassured that they will pass the tests and everything will be all right. Then, when they fail the tests, they are disgraced in front of the entire world and labeled "cheater". I’m sure the whole issue of drugs in sports opens up a panacea of different legitimate perspectives and opinions, certainly too many to cover fairly in the newsletter. If the issues of drug and sport interest you, let us know and we will feed your yearnings for knowledge in traditional Think Muscle fashion.

Gruber AJ, Pope HG Jr. Psychiatric and medical effects of anabolic-androgenic steroid use in women. Psychother Psychosom 2000;69(1):19-26