ArticleClinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society2018
Long-term anabolic steroids in male bodybuilders induce cardiovascular structural and autonomic abnormalities.
Article in Clinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Duration-Dependent Cardiac Effects of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use in Strength-Trained Athletes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Echocardiography (Mount Kisco, N.Y.) · 2026Pooled it
- When Size Goes Inside: Visceromegaly in Bodybuilders Is Not Attributed to High-Protein Intake but More Likely Associated with the Use of Appearance- and Performance-Enhancing Drugs.Medicine and science in sports and exercise · 2026Article
- Review
- Mortality in male bodybuilding athletes.European heart journal · 2025Article
- Protective effects of allicin against stanozolol-induced cardiotoxicity: Physiological and histopathological evidence in a rabbit model.Animal models and experimental medicine · 2025Article
- Psychological traits associated with anabolic androgenic steroid use and dependence: an exploratory cross-sectional study among female athletes.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Impaired vascular function among young users of anabolic-androgenic steroids.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Supraphysiological testosterone levels from anabolic steroid use and reduced sensitivity to negative facial expressions in men.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Investigating anabolic-androgenic steroid dependence and muscle dysmorphia with network analysis among male weightlifters.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Premature Death in Bodybuilders: What Do We Know?Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Article
- Impaired Cardiovascular Parameters in Resistance Training Practitioners Who Take Ergogenic Aids.Journal of cardiovascular development and disease · 2023Article
- Dead Bodybuilders Speaking from the Heart: An Analysis of Autopsy Reports of Bodybuilders That Died Prematurely.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2022Article
- Consequences of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Abuse in Males; Sexual and Reproductive Perspective.The world journal of men's health · 2022Review
- Differences in Nervous Autonomic Control in Response to a Single Session of Exercise in Bodybuilders Using Anabolic Androgenic Steroids.Journal of human kinetics · 2021Article
- Early Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction, Reduced Baroreflex Sensitivity, and Cardiac Autonomic Imbalance in Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Users.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Anabolic Androgenic Steroids Induce Reversible Left Ventricular Hypertrophy and Cardiac Dysfunction. Echocardiography Results of the HAARLEM Study.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2021Article
- Review
- Anabolic-androgenic steroids and cardiovascular risk.Chinese medical journal · 2019Review
- Public health impact of androgens.Current opinion in endocrinology, diabetes, and obesity · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe aims of this study were to examine the hypothesis that users of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) would have cardiac autonomic disorders and that there is a correlation between sympathetic modulation, high blood pressure (BP) and alterations to cardiac dimensions.
methodsForty-five male subjects were enrolled in the study. They were categorized into three groups comprising bodybuilders actively using AAS (AAS users; n = 15), bodybuilders who had never used AAS (nonusers; n = 15) and age-paired healthy sedentary controls (n = 15). Hemodynamic parameters, linear and nonlinear analyses of heart rate variability and electrocardiography and echocardiography analyses were performed at rest.
resultsBodybuilders in the AAS group had a higher mean BP than those in the ASS nonuser group (p < 0.05) and the sedentary controls (p < 0.001). Cardiac sympathetic modulation was higher in AAS users than in AAS nonusers (p < 0.05) and the sedentary controls (p < 0.001), and parasympathetic modulation was lower in AAS users than in nonusers and the sedentary controls (p < 0.05). Shannon entropy was lower in AAS users than in the sedentary (p < 0.05) controls, and the corrected QT interval and QT dispersion were higher in AAS users than in the sedentary controls (p < 0.05). The interventricular septal thickness, left ventricle posterior wall thickness and relative diastolic wall thickness were higher in AAS users than in AAS nonusers and the sedentary controls (p < 0.001). AAS users showed a positive correlation between increased sympathetic modulation and high BP (r = 0.48, p < 0.005), as well as sympathetic modulation and cardiac hypertrophy (r = 0.66, p < 0.001).
conclusionThere was a marked cardiac autonomic alteration in AAS users, with a shift toward sympathetic modulation predominance and vagal attenuation. The high BP observed in our group of bodybuilders using AAS was associated with increased sympathetic modulation, and this increased sympathetic modulation was associated with structural alterations in the heart. This association may constitute an important mechanism linking AAS abuse to increased cardiovascular risk.
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