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(Totentanz @ Sep. 13 2006,10:07)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">All that article says to me is that one shouldn't abuse drugs, it didn't say "hey, steroids will make ur kidneys fail, bro" or anything like that. Do you realize the massive amount of drugs he was probably taking? Painkillers, duiretics, stimulants, thyroid hormones and obviously steroids, but who knows what else. You can't use that as a representative take on what steroids do to your body. You may as well blame his kidney failure on the painkillers, it makes just as much sense.
Yeah, so this makes me question the logic of modern bodybuilding and it's attitude that well-being is not important, but it doesn't make me think that all steroids are evil, no matter what.</div>
Diuretics mixed with NSAIDs can be very problematic. In fact I think kidney damage is specific to a bad interaction between those two types of substances.
Lifting N Tx said:
One problem with self-dosing is that data on what is safe in the long-term may not be very available. Good data from controlled scientific studies of the use of illegal substances by human beings is probably hard to come by. Also, I'd think that quality control of anything that is sold illegally is highly suspect.
There is little to no evidence about steroids. No long term studies. Short term studies and case reports are all we have, and they do indicate a likelihood of cardiovascular risk for long term use, especially regarding orals. But, like you say no one knows what threshold is, and the case reports are almost always about some extreme level of use.