Rippling muscles, shapely curves, the elusive six-pack – these are the things we're told to want and chase in the gym, through the fitness industry itself and pop culture itself.
The reality of reaching those fitness goals can vary from person to person, thanks to factors like lifestyle, genetics and more. Still, the allure of excelling in the gym can be seductive for many, leading some to use performance-enhancing steroids.
A 2019 survey found that one in five Irish adults aged between 18-34 would consider taking anabolic steroids, which are typically used to boost performance in the gym.
Dr. Brian Higgins of Galway Primary Care joined Jennifer Zamparelli on 2FM to talk about anabolic steroid use among young Irish adults, and the effects they can have on your health.
Higgins said that the amount of people who actually use anabolic steroids is probably lower than one in five, he still said it's likely "higher than you think". He added that there's also lack of understanding about where people are accessing these steroids.
"Because it's an illicit market, it's not particularly clear so people will buy them from different sources. Some people will just go on and buy things from the internet, some people will get things from their friends, some people will get things from their coach in the gym. And the issue with that [is] you don't really know what you're getting.
"When people are talking about anabolics, we traditionally think of steroids and steroids are really just versions of testosterone and they come in all different forms, sometimes oral, sometimes injectable", Higgins explained.
"But actually, when it comes to the things that people take for fitness, there's an awful lot more than just anabolics." Higgins added that estrogen or anabolic receptor modulators can be used, as well as medications for low thyroid or for asthma.
"The issue is that all these medications have potentially serious side effects, and if you get the wrong medication from the wrong person, people can get very, very sick."
Higgins said that part of this is that if your'e sourcing anabolics from someone who isn't a medical professional, they might not do the work to find out the right one for you and your needs.
"These are illegal substances and they're being used without the full professional education of their use and the medical consequences of them, so people just need to be very, very, very careful of what they're taking", he added.
As for side effects, this depends on what a person is taking and each steroid will affect each person differently. For example, people who have mental health issues can suffer from steroid psychosis, which can cause severe depression.
"A lot of people who decide to use anabolics, they're using them because they're unhappy. Sometimes they're using the anabolics, they're getting into very good shape because they feel that might make them happier, and the risk then is if you start using an anabolic it can affect your mental health, it could actually spiral someone's mental health quite negatively."
He added that there are also hormonal side effects. "Our hormone balance is really, really, really tightly modulated", he said. "When you start giving someone the hormone like testosterone, the body says, oh great, I'm getting testosterone elsewhere so I'm going to stop producing it. And that's why testosterone can cause real issues for male fertility, and for female fertility as well."
Androgenic side effects can also occur, which are issues like oily skin, bad acne and male pattern baldness in later life.
As for how these steroids work, Higgins said that first, they change the way that blood carries oxygen, which makes people more aerobically fit. "That's one of the dangerous things about steroids, is they can increase the blood counts so much that the blood gets thick and that could lead to people getting heart attacks and strokes."
As well as this, there's how they affect the muscles themselves. "When we exercise, we're damaging the muscle and then that muscle has to repair. When people are taking anabolics, that muscle repairs an awful lot faster, so the muscle gets stronger faster and people can train more frequently."
Higgins said that while women aren't taking traditional anabolics as much as men, some are still turning to prescription-only medication to aid weight loss, which can have harmful effects on their bodies.
He added that, for women in particular, when body fat drops below a certain level, "that can actually have a reflex action on little glands in the brain that can really affect female fertility and can have really long-lasting effects on fertility".
To listen to the full interview, click above.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
