External Effects Of Anabolic Steroids On The Human Body

Ever since I began weightlifting this past year, I have always been curious about anabolic steroids and what effects they might have combined with my weightlifting. Despite looking at the negative side of anabolic steroids, I figured I would do some research to find out what could possibly happen to my body if I ever took them. All I knew about them prior to this research was the external effects they had on the human body such as increased muscle growth and acne. Upon my research, I found that anabolic steroids do much more bad than good when it comes to use and abuse. In human biology, I learned that humans make their own steroids such as cholesterol, testosterone and estrogen. When researching anabolic steroids, I found that testosterone plays a major role in these drugs. Testosterone is in all humans and is the primary hormone which attains male secondary sex characteristics (Kishner, 2013). Anabolic-androgenic steroids, also known as AAS’s, can enhance or reduce the characteristics of testosterone in our bodies. Kishner states that the goal of developing anabolic-androgenic steroids was to “develop agents that were …show more content…
Because anabolic steroids increase protein cells within muscles, this means it will have an effect on the cardio vascular system. The heart, which is also a muscle, will grow in size as well causing increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, and changes in lipid metabolism (Kishner, 2013). With all of these problems occurring on the heart, anabolic steroid use sets you up for cardiac arrest. Studies show that people who use anabolic steroids have weakness of the left ventricle during contractions (Boyle, 2010). Since steroid use has proven to cause cardiovascular complications, doctors may now start to ask patients with high blood pressure if they have or current do take