Thursday, November 08, 2007

Doping is bad, Mkay?!

A two-year study has found "frightening damage" to the offspring of 52 East German athletes from the doping-infused era of the 1970s and '80s. Of 69 children, 7 have physical deformities and 4 are mentally handicapped -- a rate of serious medical issues much higher than in the general population. The reason is forced consumption of anabolic steroids during the athletes' competitive period, according to the study conducted by the Germany University at Humboldt. More than 25% of their kids have allergies and 23% have asthma. Among the former athletes, now aged 40-60, the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth is a staggering 32 times higher than in the normal German population. In addition, 25% have suffered some form of cancer and 61% have had therapy for psychiatric disorders, including 38% with severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

Wonder if they've ever done a study like this with American football, wrasslin, or Barry Bonds? I also wonder if EPO has any side effects like this. Pretty scary stuff.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm actually surprised that those athletes could conceive a child. Usually long term steroid use makes a person sterile. Hmmm maybe I should start taking steroids so I can have an excuse to not have kids...or I could just tilt the nose of my saddle toward the sky and make my wiener numb for hours on end.

Legg

brady said...

I agree with legg. I think that I read that one of the DDR female swimmers turned into a man. Then again, I've read something about somebody on this blog with man-boobs. Hmmm. Burritos are bad, Mkay?