Anabolic designer steroids used to enhance athletic performance: a short overview

by James K. Sayre

In the world of amateur and professional sports, there is a tendency to cheat a little and to gain an extra competitive edge by ingesting or using needles to "shoot" various designer steroids intravenously. Steroids are organic compounds that contain four carbon rings. Steroids essentially act as molecular messengers to stimulate the body to synthesize more protein and creatine phosphate. This activity leads to larger muscles and increased strength. Anabolic steroids are a type of steroids whose primary function is to produce larger muscles and hence increased strength.

This is a quick overview of anabolic steroids, which are used to increase the on-field performance by athletes. Besides cheating and upsetting the supposed "level playing field" of traditional good sportsmanship, these illicit drugs can have serious health side effects. The so-called designer steroids are those synthesized steroids that are expressly created to avoid detection by the traditional drug screening tests.

Testosterone was probably one of the first of the performance enhancing drugs to be used by athletes. Testosterone is a natural chemical produced in the bodies of mammals. It was first synthesized in a German laboratory in the 1930s (to help build "the master race"?).

In the 1950s, anabolic steroids with different chemical structures from the basic testosterone were produced. In the last fifteen years or so, there has been a strong illicit effort by chemists to produce anabolic steroids that could not be detected by traditional or even modern drug testing systems. The key here was that a small change in the chemical structure would make it invisible to drug testing systems that were not looking for it. In other words, a drug testing system must first know what chemical compounds are to be searched for, before they can be found. Such steroids are called "designer steroids," because they are designed to avoid detection by their new structure.

Below is a short list of anabolic steroids, their abbreviations, slang names and other information:

testosterone = 1-testosterone - the steroid produced naturally by the body.

testosterone cypionate - a form of testosterone.

testosterone enanthate - a form of testosterone

DHT - dihydrotestosterone

DMT - des-oxy-methyl testosterone - called "stuff" - created in the 1060s

THG- tetrahydrotestosterone - a designer steroid created in the 1990s - called "the clear" and "T-stuff"

androstenedione - a "prohormone," i. e., a steroid precursor, banned by the U. S. Government in January 2005.

equipoise - boldenone undecylenate - an anabolic steroid used on horses.

norbolethone - allegedly the first "designer steroid," created in the 1990s

trenbolone - a steroid - called "Tren-stuff"

winstrol - an anabolic steroid.


Two banned peptide steroids:

EPO - erthropoictin

HGH - human growth hormone - note: the presence and use of HGH cannot be detected by urine sample tests: blood tests are needed to detect HGH. Blood tests of major league baseball players are banned under the current major league baseball players-owners agreement.


Other banned illicit substances:

amphetamine (methamphetamine) - called "speed" and many other slang names.


Humorous herbs:

flax seed oil - allegedly rubbed on his muscles to make them bigger by Mr. Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants baseball player. There is no known muscle-building effect from the topical application of flax seed oil. See my Ancient Herbs link on flax: Flax - Linum usitatissimum Flax


Regulatory agencies:

United States Anti-doping Agency

World Anti-doping Agency


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Web page last updated on 26 March 2005.