Jan 31 2009
A Brief History of Designer Steroids
Designer steroids arose as an alternative to traditional anabolic steroids, to avoid detection and testing positive during steroid drug tests. Designer steroids more or less function the same was as traditional anabolic steroids in terms of increasing strength and developing muscle, but are harder to detect using traditional testing methods. As the development and advancement of steroid detection gets more and more sophisticated, so is the production of synthetic steroids that cannot be detected by these newly created methods.
The first designer steroid
The Olympic Analytical Laboratory housed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), first discovered the first known designer steroid in 2003. THG, short for tetrahydogestrinone, was detected using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Since that time, a lot of high-profile athletes have been discredited and several have had their athletic career ruined because they were found to be using THG. Thanks to the continued effort of anti-doping agencies and the aggressive campaign and movement against doping in the sports world, searching for new methods to detect designer steroids has become an important part of the agenda. However, because of the continuing rise of newer and more sophisticated designer steroids, more investment has to be given to research and development so that the anti-doping parties can move a step ahead the rogue scientists who invent these designer steroids.
How designer steroids remain undetected
Designer steroids do not show up in traditional drug testing methods such as a urinalysis because they do not leave any chemical traces that that the test is designed to look for. For example, steroids such as THG metabolize into estrogen and dihydrotestosterone or DHT, which is commonly associated to male baldness. Both of these compounds are found in the average human body, both male and female.
Detection of THG
It was in 2003 when Barry Bonds admitted to taking THG, the first designer drug. Although he did so unknowingly, was his claim. He said that it was his personal trainer who supplied him with flaxseed oil and arthritis cream, which turned out to be THG. However, it was not Barry Bonds that was first detected using designer steroids through a laboratory drug test. Also in 2003, a track and field coach anonymously sent a vial of clear liquid to UCLA’s Olympic Drug Testing Laboratory. With the vial came a suggestion that the chemists test it for an undetectable steroid. The chemists worked tested the liquid for months and later confirmed that it contained a form of steroid, THG, which was hard to detect. Soon after making this discovery, they used their new method for testing athletes that have passed the traditional drug test and discovered that many of their urine samples contained THG.
Fight against THG
What ensued after detecting several THG users among athletes was the sentencing of the people behind the manufacture and distribution of THG. The IRS and FDA raided BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative), a suspected drug company that supplied nutritional supplements to athletes, and two years later, founder Victor Conte was sentenced to four months in prison and four months house arrest as a mastermind behind the THG conspiracy.
