Nowadays, it is widespread to use anabolic-androgenic steroids for enhanced muscle strength and energy than the human body can naturally have.
The term Anabolic-Androgenic steroids breaks as Anabolic meaning growth enhancement, and androgenic referring to the development of male sex characteristics and features. The steroids are represented as a synthetic form of the male sex hormone Testosterone. Steroids have several effects on the body they help to attain muscle mass and, promote hair growth. They can also affect the kidney, liver, or even our heart and nervous system.
There are some alternative ways to grow muscle mass than using steroids, like following a strict diet or doing high-intensity workouts. But this may require a lot of effort and takes a long time to attain the desired body. These are very tiring. So, people are now moving themselves to shortcuts. Using androgenic- steroids are one of those shortcuts which can help you grow muscle in a concise time. However, these supplements can affect your body in a very dangerous way.
As steroids have become common and widely used supplements by people, so there are several variants of steroids, which may be called different names: Oxandrin, Equipoise, Anadrol, Dianabol, and more. We can take all these supplements either orally, or by injecting them with hypodermic needles. Some people also use them as gels or creams which are directly applied to the skin.
However, the most effective way to use steroids is to inject them through needles into the body. In this way, the supplements work more efficiently and have been proven to be the fastest way to gain muscle mass. Tue steroid dose is prescribed by doctors or professional trainers. Sometimes people inject doses 50 times more than recommended by a normal doctor. Now you can imagine how diverse their effects can be.
Users try to make their muscles grow in the fastest way ever. For this purpose, they are more likely to start a process called Stacking, which is using more than one kind of steroid. Users take the increased dosage weekly, and then reduce it to half, a process known as Cycling. Both these processes are collectively called Pyramiding. Pyramiding is often prescribed as a safe way of using steroids; however, this has been proven wrong by many scientific studies.
Benefits of using steroids
The most common perception of using steroids is that they are taken as a source to increase muscle and enhance the body’s performance in the gym. Although steroids are most misused suppliments under the name of muscle gain, they have some other applications too. Some of its main benefits are given below:
⦁ Steroids are very useful in treating delayed puberty
⦁ They can be used to treat some diseases such as AIDs, or cancer, that may cause muscle loss.
⦁ It is a great supplement to speed up the healing process after workouts or injuries.
⦁ Reduces stubborn body fat
⦁ Increases RBCs
Side effects of Steroids
Although there are some benefits of using steroids, the list of side effects is way longer than the previous one. The side effects are one of the main reasons why the use of steroids is illegal if not recommended.
The side effects vary from mild to severe. Even its mild side effects are very dangerous for the normal body. Different people have different genetics, which is why everyone has a different response to steroid use. The widely known side effects are given below:
Effects heart
The use of steroids has increased the risk of getting heart disease to a great extent. When someone uses androgenic steroids along with intense workouts, this causes an increase in the size of the left ventricle of the heart, which leads to an increase the blood pressure. The blood pressure is increased due high lipid content in the steroids.
Hormone Imbalance
One of the well-known side effects is the imbalance in hormones which leads to several problems. It affects fertility in boys by mixing the gender hormones, which causes the reduction of sperm count in boys. As for women, steroids cause them to have a more masculine body with increased body hair growth.
It also causes acne, and facial hair, and changes skin drastically in teens. Steroids also make the skin and hair very oily.
Damages liver and kidney
Androgenic steroids affect kidneys and livers causing them to lose their proper functioning. This may affect the proper urination system and detoxification metabolism.
Addiction
Steroids are not scientifically proven as addictive products. However prolonged use of it can make the body and brain addicted to it. Consequently, without using steroids you can face several physiological issues such as mood swings, aggression, procrastination, and almost no energy.
Infection
When steroids are injected using medical pieces of equipment like syringes, it may cause an infection because of the non-sterile system. The medical assistant uses syringes that are already used by other steroid users. This may weaken the immune system and cause several infections.
The bottom line
Steroids are the most dangerous supplements to use to gain muscle mass. It has some positive points, but it has uncountable side effects, which make it illegal to use. So, if you want to grow muscle without compromising your health, then workouts and proper diets are the better options.