What Are the Health Effects of Steroid Abuse
- What are Steroids?
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Steroids”? Most of us immediately think of body builders and weight lifters. If you go to gym frequently you might have been told by your gym buddy about steroids and that consuming them will help you by working out less and getting better results. If so then it will be a shame to tell you that it might be true but the Steroids have serious effects on health in the short run and if abused negligently then they might cause permanent damage to your health. The Steroids are synthetic drugs which resemble the hormones produced naturally by the adrenal glands of the human body. The Steroids are given to the patients who suffer from inflammatory diseases and for the Steroids to be prescribed, many factors such as your age, your level of physical activity or any other medication that you might be taking, to what extent the Steroids to be used so that there is no permanent damage.
- What Damages Do Abuse of Steroids Cause?
If Steroids are abused without any check and balance, the damage to health starts from minor issues. You must be thinking that how the consumption of Steroids be that big of a deal, steroids are just synthetic drugs that our own body creates? How can something that our own body create be harmful to our health? The answer to your questions can be answered in one word; dependency. When Steroids are consumed, it increases the level of hormones in our body since they are being brought in from the outside and our body is creating them as well, this is from where the problems start.
2.1 Side Effects
When the Steroids are consumed above the prescribed level, due to the abundance of the hormones, our body starts to have side effects such as the followings;
- Shrinking of the testicles.
- Excessive hair growth in women.
- Deepening of the voice in women.
- Growth of breast tissue in men.
- Fertility issues.
- Heart problems.
- Elevated blood pressure.
- Rapid mood swings.
- Stroke.
- Menstrual irregularities for women.
The above-mentioned side effects are still short term and can be avoided by not abusing the Steroids and dropping the habit but if continued, the side effects can get more severe and permanent.
- Long-Term Effects
While some of the side effects can be observed from the outside when the physical condition of the body of the person starts to change, even worse is going on in their internal body parts. At the start of the abuse the hormones are in abundance but as time passes, the body stop releasing those hormones in and the person becomes dependent on Steroids. The person who has become dependent on the Steroids will have aggressive behavior and will rage if they will not be given the dose of Steroids. The crucial functioning parts of the body such as liver will start to produce tumors and kidney will start to fail. Due to elevated blood pressure rate many, the chances of the heart failure will increase. The person will become delusional and paranoid since the abuse of Steroids will have a permanent damage to the brain of the abuser.
Learn more about the side effects HERE.