It is well known that athletes consume steroids and anabolics to increase lean muscle mass and to obtain a better overall performance. However, what they do not know, is that their levels of cholesterol reach a dangerous point in which the levels of LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) increase and the levels of HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) decrease.
A study was conducted to investigate the impact of steroids and anabolics on people with HIV, who came forward and shed some light on this disease. Within 12 weeks of anabolic and steroid usage, patients with the disease had their cholesterol levels very high. Steroid use in this case, limited itself to what it intended, which was to increase muscle mass on men who were facing a high death risk, so the impact on cholesterol was much lower compared to the short term benefit steroids provide. However, for body builders and other people seeking a "fountain of youth", steroid use implies other kind of risk and deadly hazard.
The investigation was carried out at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, under the direction of Dr. Carl Grunfeld MD, chief of the metabolism and endocrinology section of the hospital. The complete results were published in the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Journal, issue of march 2006. They posed that there was clear evidence proving that the use of steroids during a 12 week period, produced the decrease of HDL cholesterol, along with a big increase of LDL cholesterol, magnifying the risk of experimenting a coronary disease by 58%. These results were obtained from the higher doses of steroids, necessary to obtain an impact on muscle mass. Besides, in this group, smokers and people with high blood pressure presented an even greater risk.
Medicine and therapy with steroids, even limited to a short period of time, can negatively affect the levels of cholesterol, and increase the risk of suffering from heart disease. Interactions with steroids can increase these risks even further as well as impact on other life choices, as seen in the investigation carried out by the VA Medical Center.
To get further information on how to control your cholesterol levels without medication and drug prescriptions, and in a completely natural way, obtain the e-book "Cholesterol Never Again" by MartÃn Teixido.
