Dec 11 2009
New Research Says Black Market Steroids Are Usually Mislabeled
The popularity of anabolic steroids among sports enthusiasts is accompanied with health and safety issues. While most sports organization have implemented strict policies on steroids because of its performance enhancing capabilities, most professional athletes still depends on this drug. Some athletes take it even if they know that they will be busted for using it. The continued use of steroids in sports makes it a lucrative business. There are a lot of companies manufacturing and distributing steroids and other products with steroid-like properties because of its huge demand. There are even unscrupulous individuals who ventures into underground steroid laboratories and manufacturers who intentionally puts erroneous claims on its steroid products.
The research conducted by the doctors of Boston Medical Center proves that anabolic steroids from these underground laboratories and other illegal manufacturers and distributors pose health risks to the users. They found out that most of these products were mislabeled and may only contain small percentage of steroids. The findings were reported in the annual meeting of American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry in Los Angeles.
According to Dr. D. Zach Smith of Boston Medical Center, the actual data regarding the composition of steroids obtained on the black market are scarce. This is due to the fact that some laboratories refuse to analyze products with steroid contents. Dr. Zach Smith told Reuters Health that many labs in the US refuse to analyze suspected steroids, so users are not able to determine with any degree of certainty if the steroids they are using are labeled or dosed correctly.
The group studied 217 cases of anabolic steroids obtained from the black market. They subjected these products into chemical analysis to determine its steroid contents. The findings were alarming since most of the products purchased from illegal manufacturers and on the internet were mislabeled. These should be a great concern for those people who are using steroids and at the same time for government regulators to look into these findings. Based from the results, 30 percent of the products analyzed did not contain any of the drugs listed on the label. This is the reason why some people complain about the efficacy of these products even at high doses.
Another finding revealed that almost 50 percent of the samples of anabolic steroids contained the wrong dosages. There are products with very low steroid content or higher than the stated composition on its label. The group also cited a sample which returned less than 1 percent content while another sample showed 5 times higher. Users will definitely suffer from complications for taking too much anabolic steroids.
Dr. Smith noted that high dosage of steroids can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, shrinkage of the testicles, enlarged male breasts, and acne. He also added that there are evidences that linked too much intake of steroids to the likelihood of having a bad reaction with severe psychiatric symptoms including mania, hostility, or aggression.
The most alarming findings of the group were the contamination of most of these anabolic steroids purchased from the black market. They said that heavy metals were detected in 1 of every 5 samples analyzed. The heavy metals which were known for its toxicity includes tin, lead, and arsenic. It can affect the muscles, nervous and digestive systems.
[...] these counts stated that Bader (and company) conspired to facilitate the sale and distribution of misbranded human growth hormone made in China, which was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and with the knowledge [...]
[...] that most of the steroids were fake or its actual composition does not match with the labels. These misbranded steroid products increase the risk to people consuming [...]