We have previously noted that the media regularly portrays pernicious images of perfection to the public, suggesting that everyone should look perfect all the time; while it should be quite obvious to anyone who gives the matter more than a few seconds of thought that logically, everyone cannot be above average.

It’s therefore shocking, but by no means surprising, that the government’s expert advisers on illicit drugs recently cautioned raised a note of caution concerning the increasing use of anabolic steroids by boys as young as 12.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ technical committee said:

tens of thousands of people [were] using steroids to improve the results of raining regimes to make themselves look more muscular.

The committee also heard that Steroid users, rather than Heroin injectors, were now the main clients of needle exchanges.

Advisory Council chairman Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, said:

Those who use anabolic steroids were often oblivious of the risks, which included acne, breast enlargement, sterility, liver tumours and hepatitis. [anabolic steroids] can also make the testicles wither – which is probably not what the users want.

The latest figures showed that 200,000 people in Britain have tried anabolic steroids, with 42,000 claiming to have used them in the last year, and 20,000 in the previous month.

Lord Victor Adebowale, (chief executive of the drugs charity Turning Point) said:

elite athletes know what they are doing using steroids, but their increasing use by boys as young as 12 and 13 is extremely worrying. They do it because they want to be in boy bands and get girls.

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Posted by Jonathan in Biochemistry, Sociology

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