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With federal indictments handed out over the weekend in an illegal steroid distribution scheme, professional sports is under scrutiny. Eager to emulate their favorite athletes, as many as 1 in 18 teens may have tried steroids. But at what cost? This ScienCentral News video takes a closer look.
Pumping Up
Anabolic steroids, sometimes called "roids," are synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone. They are used to increase muscle mass and strength, and they are illegal. But that hasn't stopped teens from using them.
In a culture obsessed with physical fitness and the pursuit of the perfect body the pressure's on to obtain the ideal. Surf the web, flip through a magazine, turn on the TV— these mediums are saturated with images of rippling muscles and six-pack abs. According to Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of the Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, the media has played an even more direct role in promoting steroids. He explains that the term "on steroids" is used to sell everything from cars to computers to post-it notes, and that "on steroids" is implied to be a good thing, denoting "bigger, better and faster." "You would never say something was 'on heroin'," he says.
In addition to the message the media has been sending out, some professional athletes haven't been setting the best example. "You've got a whole atmosphere, a culture of cheating, so that filters down to kids," Goldberg said. Widespread cheating in the Olympic sports world and steroid use by professional athletes have helped create the misimpression that "natural" athletes who play by the rules can't get to the top.”
Add body dysmorphia and the desire to dominate on the athletic field to the mix, and according to Richard Melloni, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, "there is a very big impetus to take steroids for a lot of young people."
What interests Melloni most is not why teens take steroids, but what taking steroids does to teens, and more specifically to the development of their brains. Since 1996, Melloni's laboratory has been studying the link between steroid use and aggression, and he has found that there are dramatic changes in the areas of the brain and brain chemicals that control aggression. "Our studies have shown us very conclusively that exposure to anabolic steroids during adolescence produces a different brain," Melloni says.
Melloni likened the teen brain to a computer. "Your computer has wires in it that connects one inside to the other. Your brain's the same way. It has wire systems that connect one part of the brain to the other…Steroid exposure changes the development of those neural wires so it changes the circuits that are set up in the brain."
image: Richard Melloni Lab
Melloni and his team studied these changes in adolescent hamsters. "We give an animal anabolic steroids throughout adolescent development and we ask a simple question. At the end of the treatment time when the animal is a young adult is he more aggressive?" And, Melloni says, "the answer's been yes."
What Melloni and his team found is that three separate neural systems in the developing brain are affected by steroid use. A brain chemical called vasopressin, involved in stimulating aggression, is found to be increased by steroid use. A second neurochemical, gamma amino butyric acid, or GABA for short, is also involved in aggression stimulation. A third brain chemical studied and affected is serotonin, which aids in suppressing aggression. Serotonin levels are dramatically decreased by steroid use. "So essentially what you are doing is stepping on the gas for aggression and taking off the brake for aggression, if you expose yourself to anabolic steroids during adolescence," says Melloni.
Preliminary research shows that these changes are long-lasting. According to Melloni, "animals that take anabolic steroids are aggressive for a long period after they stop taking those anabolic steroids." Steroid users also sometimes report a condition called "steroid withdrawal associated depression." "When you stop taking steroids a number of users report an increase incidence of depressive episodes," says Melloni
In addition to these negative behavioral effects, there are numerous negative physical side-effects. Steroid users report stunted growth, increased acne, baldness, high blood pressure, and liver damage.
Melloni wants teens to know the dangers taking steroids pose to their physical and mental health. He will next look at what effects very short-term exposure to steroids will have on the developing brain. This research was published in Hormones and Behavior and was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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