Are steroids and growth hormones safe?

Our sports-loving nation loves a winner, and it's fair to say that most of the 5 million boys and girls who compete in high school sports love to win. Some of them will go to great lengths to do so. That may mean using performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.

Anabolic steroids--compounds similar to the male hormone testosterone--are too often used by athletes, both boys and girls, to build muscle. They are also used by young men who just want to look better. They are prescription drugs, but most of those who use them obtain them illegally, often from the black market. Steroids have a lot of unwanted side effects--that's why they are supposed to be sold only by prescription. They may well build muscle, but it's a losing proposition, because their use--particularly in the large doses that athletes take--can stunt growth, lead to cancer, ruin the liver, and bring on other complications, including enlarged breasts in boys. For girls, the side effects include developing masculine traits that may be irreversible.

Black-market steroids often are produced in another country or by clandestine domestic manufacturers under questionable conditions and may be contaminated. The quacks have also moved in with phony steroids and phony pills that they say--falsely--will counter some of the side effects of steroids.

Earlier this year, FDA warned that a counterfeit version of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, was being sold to weight lifters and other athletes. The bogus hormones were contaminated with a substance that causes infections and fever.

A black market has also sprung up for human growth hormone. This prescription drug is legitimately given to children who suffer from pituitary dwarfism or growth hormone deficiency, but it, too, has dangerous side effects. Nevertheless, athletes seeking to benefit from added growth are buying the hormone on the black market. Quacks are also marketing "growth tablets" that, in fact, contain no hormones or any other ingredients that can promote growth.