Alright kids, put on your thinking caps and gather 'round the big octopus.
I believe all men and women have the unequivocal
right to manage the hormone levels of their own body; not politicians. In some countries,
sadly, men don't have the same rights over their endocrine systems as women. It's perfectly socially acceptable for women to use medroxyprogesterone
acetate injections to prevent pregnancy, but have any of you wondered why hormonal birthcontrol is only available to women? In this day in age of
medical wonders what about men? In fact male birthcontrol has always been around, the hormonal axis that dictates male fertility just involves a
different set of hormones; namely testosterone.
If you know your American history, you'll remember the big hoopla that went on during the sexual revolution surrounding female birthcontrol.
Politicians pronounced from their ivory towers that this was morally reprehensible, thumbing god in the eye, promoting promiscuity, etc. Although
it's arguably not a certainty, in the eyes of these same kinds of people, wouldn't a male solution be even worse?
After losing the fight against woman's reproductive rights and realizing that a direct approach wasn't going to fly, a new direction was needed.
Studies on a male equivalent were already well underway, as men wanted to know, and rightly so: what about us?
At the same time, a wide variety of androgenic steroids had already been in use by athletes since the 1930s. America wasn't doing well at the
Olympics because of countries who had poured serious money into endocrine research and there was no viable test to detect any of it; Russia and
Germany were making discoveries left and right while America trailed from afar. That's not to say America didn't also "assist" nearly every one of
it's Olympic competitors before there were testing, they did, just not with nearly as much success.
Politicians really didn't give a flying you know what about America's Olympic shortcomings, but it did come at a convenient time to exploit. Before
you know it there was a mass media campaign warning young men that steroids would make you permanently sterile and cause your penis to shrink. Of
course there's no medical data showing this, it was born out of the medium of the time; one news source quotes another, again and again until you get
a kind of telephone tag where the end result is nothing like the original statement, except the end result actually stuck in our modern mythology. The
reduction in steroid use that followed held the fort until a test was developed and the social stigma now attached made it difficult for science to
acquire the funding to do more research.
Of course steroids weren't actually made illegal in America until the born again Christians took over the political scene in the 1990's, that was
their long-term assurance.
Originally posted by Scooby Doo
Mainly the biggest two issues is the cheating in sports and the side effects caused by anabolic steroid abuse. Side effects from steroid use can
include:
1. Inhibition of Natural Hormones
2. Liver Damage
3. Effects Cholesterol (Blood Lipid Profile)
4. Gynocomastia (Development of breast tissue in males)
5. Severe Acne
6. Roid Rage (or) Phychological impairments
8. Cardiovascular Problems
10. Stunted Growth (height)
10. Prostate Enlargement
11. High Blood Pressure
12. Kidney Problems
13. Immune System Changes
14. Sterility in Males and Females
Well Scooby, you have you differentiate use, from abuse. Tylenol is one of the biggest causes of admittance to the ER there is, but used correctly it
shouldn't be a problem, right? Lets run down the list together
1. Inhibition of natural hormones is 50% of the whole point and the main reason you can't go down to the doctor right now and get a Transdermal
Testosterone patch so you don't go and get a girl pregnant, not because it'll add a plate or two to your bench-press. This is a plus, not a
minus.
2. If you drink alcohol, you do more damage to your liver than oral anabolic steroids. Tylenol is extremely hepatoxic but you can buy it off the shelf
anywhere. If you eat an entire bottle in one sitting, you will kill your liver, just as if you were to take an entire bottle of Tylenol or drink a 40
of moonshine.
3. Effects on lipid profile mainly concerns older fellas, but it's something to keep an eye on with bloodwork.
4. Gynocomastia is easily controlled with estrogen and progesterone inhibiting drugs.
5. Acne? Wash your face.
6. The term "Roid Rage" came out of political scare tactics. Without knowing anything about endocrinology or human physiology, one might mistakenly
assume that testosterone makes the man and estrogen makes the woman in terms of disposition and state of mind. Increasing the level of testosterone in
a man will actually increase their sense of well-being and improve their mood. There's never been any evidence in modern medicine to suggest anabolic
steroids lead to aggression in men, in fact the opposite is true. This is something uneducated people will plainly assert to be true without having
any idea what they're talking about.
7. Cardiovascular side effects such as deceased stamina are dependent on what hormones and doses are being used, these issues cease upon ending the
hormone.
8. Steroids will fuse growth in the long bones of those not yet through puberty. Steroids shouldn't be used by anyone under 21.
9. Prostate enlargement is due to dihydrotestosterone, DHT can be blocked with a variety of drugs, as well as natural supplements such as Saw
Palmetto.
10. High blood pressure is mainly due to water retention. Water retention is caused by raised estrogen levels which can be controlled, as we learned
in #4.
11. Is about as easy to harm your kidneys with oral anabolic steroids as it is to harm your liver... as in, you need a death wish to ingest that many
pills to impact them.
12. Testosterone and the immune system isn't well understand, I've read old papers saying there is a correlation but the real world doesn't line
up.
13. Does taking oestrogen make women permanently sterile? No, no it doesn't.
Ask yourself a minute, why do politicians and law makers care about baseball and football stats? Maybe in their spare time, but at the workplace? Is
that what it's really about?