Article in Outside magazine

[redwolf64]

Here's a little blurb of interest from Slate.com's round-up of current magazines:

***
Outside Magazine, November 2003
What does it feel like to take performance-enhancing
drugs? For eight months, Stuart Stevens downed a cocktail of human
growth hormone, testosterone, EPO, and steroids. Ten hours into a
200-mile bicycle ride, Stevens reports, "All around me were riders?good,
strong riders?who looked as worn out as you'd expect after ten hours in
the saddle. I was tired, but I felt curiously strong, annoyingly
talkative and fresh, eager to hammer the last 40 miles." The next day, he felt
ready to ride another 200 miles. "It was a reassuring kind of world, and I
could see why people might want to stay there." In the end, he comes down on the side of anti-dopers. Legalizing performance-enhancing drugs "would turn
every sport into a test of how much damage an athlete was willing to risk."

***

I'll go on my own little rant here. The thing that bugs me about the whole steroid issue is that articles like this seem to base their findings on the use of performance enhancing drugs by atheletes in situations where they're going for the big win or to get bigger without solid evidence on what amounts can be done safely. The medical establishment, politicians, etc, have been quick to condemn them outright, but little research has been done how performance enhancing drugs can be used safely in certain amounts.

Why shouldn't I be able to go to a doctor (any doctor) and get a prescription for a brief regimin of drugs that would help me "jump start" a workout program or get over a plateau?

I can go to many doctors and get pec or calf implants or get botox injected in my skin -- is surgery and implantation of a foreign device into my body or injecting it with botulism safer than a short-term controlled mix of performance enhancing drugs?

I have to admit, when I see and talk to AIDS patients with less bodyfat and bulked up muscle hopping around my gym like overeager bunnies, then I go to my doctor who tells me my testosterone level is "normal" and that I should just try harder, I want to freakin' scream.

[redwolf64]

I'll clarify the last part of my message above. I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote it.

I'm not screaming because of the patients -- who certainly need the drugs -- but at the doctors. The "normal" range for testosterone levels seems to be quite wide, at least from what I've read here and there. I'm not sure if they really know (or want to research) what a healthy and active adult male level _should_ be or if a particular level for a certain temporary period would provide a longer term effect by helping the body reach a certain level of activity.