"I've Assumed I'm Possibly Infertile By Now": The Drugs Behind Impossible Male Beauty Standard

Spring is a time of change: the days are longer and some men suddenly bulge their muscles, almost overnight.

The latter is not an organic or natural mutation, but the result of the use of anabolic steroids, a more widespread practice than many think: 6% of people who go to the gym consume these substances, according to a report by the European Commission.

The figure rises to 7.9% of men over 18 years of age.

But what are anabolics or anabolic steroids?

The United States government health department offers this definition: they are synthetic versions of testosterone that are used to treat some health problems, such as muscle loss caused by certain diseases, and sometimes in sports, without medical supervision and illegally, they are consumed —in doses 10 to 100 times more concentrated than those for medical use— to build muscles and improve sports performance.

They are popularly called

because its intake is usually given in specific periods of time, between 8 and 12 weeks, and then leave a time of rest and readjustment to the body.

Users often combine two or more types of anabolic steroids from among the hundreds of variants that exist.

Some substances are taken orally, but the most effective are injectable.

The phenomenon corresponds to a physical canon - very muscular and fat-free bodies - practically impossible to achieve, but increasingly widespread.

Today, it is rare to see a Hollywood blockbuster in which there are no actors with hypermuscular bodies.

Interpreters who, shortly after, tend to detail in detail the miraculous nutritional and sports plans that they have followed to gain kilos in volume, leaving the germ of a dangerous idea among the public: that anyone who

at the gym can have that body.

Zac Efron warned the public that the physique he achieved in

(2017)

It wasn't realistic or healthy.

Mickey Rourke confessed that he had taken steroids as part of his training for

(2008).

Kumail Nanjiani gained about 12 kilos of muscle in less than a year to become a Marvel superhero in

(2021).

Anyone who takes the test, even training every day and following a diet applied with surplus protein, will discover that gaining 12 kilos of muscle is a goal that can only be achieved over several years of perseverance and dedication.

A young Arnold Schwarzenegger shows off his muscles in an image taken in 1976. Bettmann (Bettmann Archive)

What do some men do when the screens (including the mobile) are filled with impossible bodies?

Try to mold yours in the image and likeness.

And often in the shortest time possible.

In a 2014 report, the Civil Guard cited as one of the causes of this phenomenon the "obsession of modern man to achieve high levels of physical, mental and aesthetic well-being".

According to Aida Natalia Arranz Guerrero, a resident of Family and Community Medicine in Granada, one of the reasons is aesthetic and another is competitive.

“Anabolic steroids can lead you to achieve the same results as exercise, but without having to wait.

There is a word of mouth effect that is generated in gyms, a very visual world in which people are constantly comparing themselves.

"Too easy"

César works in a gym in Madrid and admits that it is easy to guess who uses these methods.

“Years ago I saw it constantly, now people hide more.

It's a taboo subject, but you see who's doing it, you see the results, people talk."

Cesar (whose real name he prefers not to reveal) also turned to anabolics for years because he wanted to bulk up and felt he could never achieve his goal with diet and exercise alone.

“When you start going out in Chueca and see the physical competition that exists, you go to the gym.

But profits appear very slowly.

Then your curiosity starts to get piqued and you look for information”, says Nacho, a young man in his thirties from Madrid who has been taking anabolic steroids for about five years.

Nacho (also a pseudonym) informed himself in forums and articles, even turning to clinical trials and scientific publications in the PubMed medical database, with which he is familiar because he works in the pharmaceutical industry.

His knowledge of technical terminology led him to delve into the benefits and risks of

and he ended up taking the plunge.

“It is very easy to find out where to buy these substances.

Everything is on the internet.

No need to go to the

”.

Juan began at the age of 48 with his first

.

“I decided because, obviously, I wanted to be strong, but I also worked as a DJ, I wanted to look good in front of the public and also have a good background during my sessions, in which, in addition to DJing, I danced.

With the

, in three months, a great appearance is achieved”.

He has undergone two and admits that the thought of a third scares him because of his age.

When he

he looked “terrific” physically and he remembers that time as one in which he had a lot of vitality and had a great time.

“Of course, he was restless, irritable and slept worse.

And when you finish, the body returns to its natural state and you feel a strong mood drop, ”he adds.

Nacho 's

varies, depending on the news that arises and its objectives.

“For me the basic is testosterone, then there is Boldenone, Deca, Winstrol, which always sounds around because it

much…".

Dry steroids, he explains, bulk up with less fluid retention, resulting in less bloated but longer-lasting muscle, while liquid steroids result in that fuller, thicker image we have associated with this muscle. practice.

"First you gain a lot, a lot of weight, and then it dries up," says César, who also mentions Deca and Winstrol, as well as Primobolan and Testex, among the drugs he used.

“Everything is illegal, of course.

It could be taken in pill form, or by intramuscular injection.

Even with insulin injections in the shoulder."

The effects, in any case, are visible for a limited time and the body soon loses volume, which causes many to repeat and end up doing it regularly.

Cycle guidelines are supposedly designed to avoid long-term sequelae from taking a combination of medications.

Some of these drugs are legal and are prescribed for other conditions such as anorexia, growth retardation or endometriosis.

Others are only on the black market.

Through a representative, the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) has explained to ICON that the ones that are distributed and consumed the most, in addition to those cited by Nacho, are "other hormonal anabolic substances such as nandrolone, growth hormones such as somatropin, insulins, adrenergic agonists such as Clenbuterol and other drugs used to counteract some adverse effects: anticancer,

The body of Henry Cavill (in the image, in London in 2017) is one of the most desired in many gyms, but experts warn that his muscle mass is the product of years and cannot be gained in a few months. Tim P. Whitby

The syringes that some inject have a price that ranges between the 200 euros that Nacho spends (“with shipping costs”) and 500, but it can go up.

“If you do a more elaborate cycle in which you put three substances and start to stagger the intake, and maybe go up to 12 or 16 weeks instead of eight, the price can increase a lot.

The more sophisticated the substances, the more expensive.”

Juan admits that at first he was afraid of injecting himself.

“You can not do it, but the consumption in pills is worse for the liver.

There are also many pills because it is a pyramid approach: you start with a few and end up with days in which you have to take more than twenty”.

“A serious health risk”

From the AEMPS they remember that the consumption of unauthorized medicines, or obtained through illegal channels, supposes "a serious risk to health since they lack quality, safety and efficacy", and they recommend the use of the CIMA application to consult authorized medicines in Spain.

This agency is in charge, among other things, of offering technical support and advice to the judicial authorities in the fight against substances such as anabolics, and has managed to close down illegal web pages that sell them.

The accessibility of these products (not only on the internet: in many gyms you just have to ask the right people a couple of questions to find a supplier) is what has led to an increase in their use after the pandemic, especially among men. youths.

According to the Consumption, Environment and Doping Section of the Central UDEV of the National Police, it has grown by 20% compared to March 2020. The AEMPS has also seen an upward trend in the interventions of these drugs in cross-border trade and in the actions of the authorities outside the regulated channels.

And what is taboo for much of society is spreading as a practice advocated by young men in certain circles.

TikTok user @socalben, a 20-something American with more than 20,000 followers, posted a video in 2020 saying, “If steroids are banned in sports, makeup should be banned in beauty pageants.”

Another Ben, American and in his 20s, but this one with almost 500,000 followers, @ben.dunn, defends the use of substances such as steroids and creatine, a legal dietary supplement ingested by many athletes that, according to him, can also have antidepressant effects.

“Taking PEDs [performance-enhancing drugs] is a personal decision with too much stigma attached to it,” he wrote alongside one of his videos.

Zac Efron, who gained an enormous amount of muscle mass for his role in 'Baywatch', warned the public that his physique was neither healthy nor realistic.

The striking thing is that, according to a recent study, 70% of people who take anabolic steroids are aware of the adverse effects.

"The most common side effects are the mildest," says Arranz.

“Acne, sexual dysfunction, breast development in men, stretch marks, pain where the injection occurs… But then there are the serious ones, which occur when a person injects hormones or anabolics in large doses, very often or during long periods of time, like five or six months without a break”.

As detailed by the AEMPS, many of these serious effects are sometimes irreversible: hepatitis, liver cancer, stroke, stroke, heart attack, sudden cardiac death, thrombosis, atherosclerosis, severe acne, thyroid disorders, gynecomastia or erection difficulty.

“A couple of marbles”

Some effects we talk about are related to behavior.

"It changes your character completely, you become aggressive," says César.

“The only thing you think about is training, training and training.

The sex life is reduced, everything else is reduced, you enter a bubble by yourself and you end up bursting.

Each substance has its own risks.

For example, trenbolone, as Nacho discovered in his own flesh, sexually excites the user so much that fetishes and desires appear that were perhaps hidden, and an irrepressible desire to satisfy them.

The use of anabolic steroids has also been associated with the appearance of psychological disorders such as depression and psychotic episodes, leading to suicide in some cases.

“It is true that testosterone improves mood, helps against depression,

muscle fatigue or lack of energy”, explains the doctor.

"But if it is consumed for a long time or in large doses, violent, manic, narcissistic, histrionic states can also develop... In addition, if consumption stops suddenly, a

and, again, a depression ”.

Nacho confesses that his testicles are “like a couple of marbles”, one of the most common consequences of the use of anabolic steroids because the brain, perceiving that there is an excess of testosterone in the blood, stops producing it on its own.

To reverse this phenomenon, substances such as human chorionic gonadotropin must be taken, in a period known as

designed to be able to resume hormonal production.

"If it resumes," Nacho clarifies.

"I'm possibly sterile right now, and irretrievably," he adds in a more serious tone.

are

an open secret, but the debate is out there: Last year YouTuber Noel

, a bodybuilder with nearly two million followers, posted a video titled

.

“It is very common to see lies to sell training or diet plans.

Too many

are looking to get rich by taking advantage of the vulnerability of others”, he sentenced.

“I will never say what I am consuming because I have a very young audience and the last thing I want is for them to get hurt because of something I have said.

I've seen people promoting steroid cycles on TikTok and that's not cool."

Throughout our conversation, Nacho admits on several occasions that he suffers from a certain degree of dependence on these substances, something very common among those who take them, because they produce well-being and euphoria.

His technical knowledge makes him think that he takes less risk and has a safer control of the effects.

“It's a lie that I tell myself: 'As long as you control, nothing is going to happen.'

But something can happen to me anyway, and if not now it will be 20 years from now.

We don't think long term."

His friends don't take steroids out of fear.

He sometimes thinks about quitting, but he feels better and looks better when he cycles.

Now he himself is, as he says, "in the thick of it."

"One day I decided to quit and it didn't cost me anything," says César.

"I decided I couldn't sustain that level of training, and the financial cost was too high."

He confesses that he misses the physique he achieved back then, but has set out to achieve it through more natural means, even if it takes more time and effort.

“When I quit, I noticed a huge change in my relationship with my partner.

When I took it, it seemed that it did not exist.

Now it has nothing to do with it, and it has completely changed my character”.

Looking back, he doesn't recommend it to anyone.

“In the long run, all I did was harm my health.”

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