How Did They Not Know They Were On Steroids?

It’s become commonplace to see in the news where an athlete has tested positive for a banned substance and is being suspended from their sport as punishment. Many times this news will also feature the offending athlete swearing that they had no knowledge of taking the substances, and often they blame supplements or other substances for causing their positive test. On the surface it would seem like the athlete was just making excuses in an attempt to salvage their career or credibility, but in many cases the athletes are telling the truth when they say they didn’t know they had used steroids or other performance enhancing substances.

As hard as it is to believe, when former Major League Baseball star Mark McGwire told congress that he didn’t knowingly ingest steroids during the latter years of his career he was probably telling the truth. It’s become common knowledge that McGwire used androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product, during his chase of the single-season homerun record in 1998. Andro, as the drug is commonly known, became listed as an anabolic steroid in 2004 by the United States Congress, but in actuality is not a steroid. The substance is instead a steroid precursor. Once andro is ingested by the user natural processes in the liver convert the substance into testosterone and/or estrogen. The subsequent increase in these naturally occurring hormones then has the desired effects of increasing endurance and decreasing the amount of recovery time for tired or damaged muscles.  In layman’s terms andro makes the user stronger, and able to recover more quickly from the rigors of a game or from working out. When McGwire said he didn’t take steroids during the 1998 season it’s likely he’s telling the truth, however he did take a substance that was turned into a steroid by his body, but that wasn’t illegal at the time.

Other times athletes are the victims of legal dietary supplements. Many times these supplements are marketed as being legal and steroid free. While they are technically legal and steroid free that’s not the whole story. Since the crackdown on anabolic steroids users and dealers have found creative ways around the regulations. One such tactic is the practice of chemically cloning a steroid and placing it into supplements. One such designer drug is Desoxymethyltestosterone, or Madol. It is technically an anabolic steroid, but is completely a synthetic compound, it doesn’t occur in nature. Madol bonds with other naturally occurring compounds in the body to have an anabolic effect on muscle tissues and organs. It has been shown to stimulate healing and muscle growth, and causes the same damage to the liver and kidneys, as does the abuse of naturally occurring anabolic steroids. However until it became listed with anabolic steroids in 2008 it was completely legal to buy and use. What’s more the substance is still distributed in over-the-counter supplements with only the smallest mention of it in the fine print of the ingredient label. So an athlete could innocently use any number of legal supplements, which contain Madol, not know that they were ingesting a banned substance.

Experts warn that cloned and legal steroids could actually be a greater health risk than their banned counterparts. In most cases a user is unaware that they are taking the substances until they either fail a drug test for them, or start showing symptoms of steroid abuse. Cases have been reported where users had already suffered irreparable damage to the liver kidneys by the time they realized they were using anabolic steroids. The best advice for someone using or thinking of using a dietary or performance supplement is to read the labels, talk to your doctor or pharmacist, and discontinue use if there are any adverse reactions.