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Getting a bit of airtime in bodybuilding circles at the moment is a study by Danish researchers that appeared to show:
Here's the study abstract:
Background
The use of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids (AAS) has been associated with increased aggressiveness and violent behavior. We therefore investigated the proposed correlation between the use of AAS and criminality while controlling for important socio-economics covariates and for psychiatric comorbidity.
Methods
The primary endpoints were prison sentences, and time to first prison sentence. A retrospective matched cohort study design consisting of 545 males, who tested positive for AAS in Danish gyms during the period January 3, 2006 to January 31, 2017. They were matched with 5450 randomly chosen male controls. Data were cross-referenced with national register information on education, employment status, substance abuse and psychiatric comorbidity. In addition, 638 males sanctioned because they rejected to participate in the doping control and 6380 controls were used as a replication cohort.
Results
Already at baseline, 20.6% of the AAS users had a previous prison sentence whereas the rate was 3.7% in the control cohort (p < 0.0001). During the follow-up period the cumulative prevalence increased to 29.5% and 4.9%, respectively (unadjusted HR 9.15, 95% CI 6.33–13.20). The associations remained highly significant after controlling for socio-economic factors, drug abuse and psychiatric comorbidity. The results could be replicated in a similar cohort.
Conclusion
Our study shows that AAS users have a 9-fold increased risk of being convicted of a crime compared to matched controls, randomly chosen from the general population. This association could not be explained by common socioeconomic factors or by psychiatric comorbidity.
Rather interesting, you might think. But what's that you say? You want to know how they found the AAS-using subjects that became the basis for their study?
Well now, that's a rather interesting question. Because, you see, in Denmark they have a (shocking and insidiously discriminatory) government-run programme whereby gym owners can report any member who looks 'suspiciously muscular' and force them to take a steroid drug test (essentially; otherwise they lose their gym membership). And any members caught will lose their gym membership.
And who do you think they're going to report? Do you think they're going to report everyone who looks unnaturally muscular, including their friends and friendly, easy-going people, and also lose a ton of paid members? Or do you think they'll just report the assholes they no longer want training at their gym? The kinds of assholes and criminals that may well end up in prison some day? It's really not that hard to imagine, is it?
Yet it's a question the researchers barely even considered, and certainly not one they made any real effort to highlight or discuss. And that's because it entirely invalidates their study and makes its findings meaningless. Which makes you wonder how it ever gained approval in the first place. Although if you've been paying much attention to the state of scientific research of late, it probably doesn't.
What irritates me the most about this particular piece of rubbish research is that it blatantly serves to re-stigmatise an entire group of (almost entirely) men purely on the basis of the way they look. A group of men who've already spent the better part of the last 50 years enduring - and trying to counter - similarly crude and superficial stereotypes about the roid-raging, pea-brained, narcissistic, insecure muscleman. A similar study about any other group of people would likely have failed to gain approval on ethics grounds alone, so the level of academic hypocrisy involved in approving this one is telling, to say the least...
• Anabolic-androgenic steroid users had a 9-fold higher crime rate compared to controls.
• By end of follow-up 18.5% of the AAS users had been imprisoned due to violent crimes.
• This increased rate of crime was not attributable to common socio-economic factors.
• By end of follow-up 18.5% of the AAS users had been imprisoned due to violent crimes.
• This increased rate of crime was not attributable to common socio-economic factors.
Here's the study abstract:
Anabolic-androgenic steroids and the risk of imprisonment (2019)
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Volume 203, 1 October 2019, Pages 92-97
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Volume 203, 1 October 2019, Pages 92-97
Background
The use of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids (AAS) has been associated with increased aggressiveness and violent behavior. We therefore investigated the proposed correlation between the use of AAS and criminality while controlling for important socio-economics covariates and for psychiatric comorbidity.
Methods
The primary endpoints were prison sentences, and time to first prison sentence. A retrospective matched cohort study design consisting of 545 males, who tested positive for AAS in Danish gyms during the period January 3, 2006 to January 31, 2017. They were matched with 5450 randomly chosen male controls. Data were cross-referenced with national register information on education, employment status, substance abuse and psychiatric comorbidity. In addition, 638 males sanctioned because they rejected to participate in the doping control and 6380 controls were used as a replication cohort.
Results
Already at baseline, 20.6% of the AAS users had a previous prison sentence whereas the rate was 3.7% in the control cohort (p < 0.0001). During the follow-up period the cumulative prevalence increased to 29.5% and 4.9%, respectively (unadjusted HR 9.15, 95% CI 6.33–13.20). The associations remained highly significant after controlling for socio-economic factors, drug abuse and psychiatric comorbidity. The results could be replicated in a similar cohort.
Conclusion
Our study shows that AAS users have a 9-fold increased risk of being convicted of a crime compared to matched controls, randomly chosen from the general population. This association could not be explained by common socioeconomic factors or by psychiatric comorbidity.
Rather interesting, you might think. But what's that you say? You want to know how they found the AAS-using subjects that became the basis for their study?
Well now, that's a rather interesting question. Because, you see, in Denmark they have a (shocking and insidiously discriminatory) government-run programme whereby gym owners can report any member who looks 'suspiciously muscular' and force them to take a steroid drug test (essentially; otherwise they lose their gym membership). And any members caught will lose their gym membership.
And who do you think they're going to report? Do you think they're going to report everyone who looks unnaturally muscular, including their friends and friendly, easy-going people, and also lose a ton of paid members? Or do you think they'll just report the assholes they no longer want training at their gym? The kinds of assholes and criminals that may well end up in prison some day? It's really not that hard to imagine, is it?
Yet it's a question the researchers barely even considered, and certainly not one they made any real effort to highlight or discuss. And that's because it entirely invalidates their study and makes its findings meaningless. Which makes you wonder how it ever gained approval in the first place. Although if you've been paying much attention to the state of scientific research of late, it probably doesn't.
What irritates me the most about this particular piece of rubbish research is that it blatantly serves to re-stigmatise an entire group of (almost entirely) men purely on the basis of the way they look. A group of men who've already spent the better part of the last 50 years enduring - and trying to counter - similarly crude and superficial stereotypes about the roid-raging, pea-brained, narcissistic, insecure muscleman. A similar study about any other group of people would likely have failed to gain approval on ethics grounds alone, so the level of academic hypocrisy involved in approving this one is telling, to say the least...
I always thought Denmark and the Scandinavian nations in general were some of the most progressive societies on Earth... but this makes me think again, for sure...
