[greymule]

Only problem is that there is no medical evidence that proper use of steroids is medically unsafe.

It's true that the question of steroid safety doesn't lend itself well to control-treatment studies and thus statistical proof. And I know that here and there you find a doctor who pooh poohs the danger. But sometimes you can put 2 and 2 together anyway.

If "proper use of steroids" means temporary application of low doses to treat certain conditions, then I suspect the above statement is true. However, we know that steroids cause significant physiological changes throughout the body. I cannot believe that there are not severe negative consequences to use of steroids to pile on muscular bulk. In fact, even without steroids, adding the bulk alone is if nothing else a strain on the heart.

I remember hearing for decades that there was no medical evidence that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer, too. In the 1950s, cigarette ads showed white-coated physicians pointing to diagrams and figures, explaining how cigarette smoking was a health aid. Remember the cigarette ads featuring Major League ballplayers?

Over the next decade or two, I suspect we will see a statistically significant increase in the numbers of early deaths by athletes who bulked up with steroids. But proof is something else. After all, the skinny singles hitter who at age 32 goes from 170 to 240 and now bench presses 450 pounds will claim he did it with Wheaties.