Originally Posted by
Rajflyboy
Now this behavior of doping... does it cause major health problems later in life ? Or not ?
Totally depends on the methods used.
Banking some of your own red cells to re-inject before a major race? No issue at all, really. After a few days, your body is back to homeostasis.
Pharmaceuticals? Some can have major consequences. Any anabolic affects all muscles, not just the ones you want stronger. So.....possible heart issues, etc. with some of the highly anabolic steroids.
Not to mention the possible future endocrine system issues that you can see from manipulating hormone levels. Simply bumping test or other hormones up to high-normal levels is *probably* OK. But there are no real studies done on the long term effects of doing this in otherwise healthy people. No matter what, I would think that over time your body will stop making whatever hormone you're injecting at it's normal rate since it sees a high level of that in your system. That leads to maybe being reliant on the replacement hormone for life if your natural production doesn't bounce back after coming off the booster.