> On average, victims of East German doping die 10 to 12 years earlier than the rest of the population. And here's another alarming statistic: A victim of East German doping falls ill 2.7 times as often, and for psychological illnesses, we have calculated a factor of 3.2.
That's fair enough
> Against this background, calls to legalize performance-enhancing drugs are naïve and irresponsible.
Maybe, but this is a bit of a non-sequitur. Especially as the drugs were given unwillingly and with no consideration to individual conditions (and in excess doses)
>The magnitude in East Germany was likely unique. Unbeknownst to them, the athletes were given heavy anabolic steroids along with sex and growth hormones, often in extremely high doses. For many of the victims, the consequences have been dramatic, some of which are only appearing now, decades later.
The other thing which is missing in that rather myopic conversation is that after their careers are over most competitive athletes in general have a hard time adjusting to a more "mundane" life which is understandable given that they were training since their childhood to be the best in their respective sport.
Money to some extent can bridge that gap but in most sports there isn't much money to be made in the first place.
Now give this into the mix of the accumulated harm to the body - at that level you are taking that willingly into account - and some insane overdosing to somehow sustain the damage in a system with unchecked incentives (ideological view), you now have a very clear signal.
In classic bodybuilding where historically virtually all half-openly use/experiment with all kinds of PEDs, one can observe that with time and experience the dosings of e.g. TRT and GH are being finely titrated now. Additionaly because of the more open culture around that topic there is a solid understanding (in the more professional community at least) about the benefits and potential side effects.
Another more serious issue are the effects of extreme weight cutting but I'll leave it at that.
> there is a solid understanding (in the more professional community at least)
Hmm. I don't know about that. There has been a spate of recent deaths of professional bodybuilders in their 30s and 40s despite more knowledge and health checks.
The problem with PEDs in competitive sports is that in many cases, higher doses mean more results. It pushes competitors and coaches out of what might be safe usage into high risk. Although use is admitted in bodybuilding, the vast doses and number of compounds is something most lie / downplay with only a few whistleblowers sharing real world usage.
> Another more serious issue are the effects of extreme weight cutting
Also a PED issue. Some of the Shelby Starne's stacks used in recent deaths of female bodybuilders are insane. Stacking 3 different diuretics, multiple types of stimulant... my god. They looked like they were designed to give people heart attacks.
You have a good take on this. Matter of fact is we have very little data on the role of anabolics on mortality/longevity. What we do have on pro-level dosages is almost completely negative.
We can say with some confidence that a small TRT dosage would be beneficial for almost all seniors. But small means really small, just enough to bring their hormones up to par with an average 50 year old body. Anything above that has non-negligible risks for any population and I hope no one will use PEDs with the assumption that they'll never pay a health price for it. I wish it were different but it is what it is.
Yes, you might be on the right track here 'cause I honestly lack a well founded overview over the scene as a whole. So I correct myself:
From the things I've selectively listen to or read about [0] they at least are more knowledgeable about their "stuff" or more open to share their experiences as compared to other competitive athletes. If they act accordingly (on average) is up to a thorough analysis which I've not encountered so far. I can imagine as with other performance driven activities there is certainly a lot of potential for reckless abuse given the highly competitive nature.
Most performance-enhancing drugs are already legal for prescription use, and in some circumstances can even be used by competitive athletes with an approved therapeutic use exception. But there's really nothing to be gained by allowing every athlete to use such drugs.
> On average, victims of East German doping die 10 to 12 years earlier than the rest of the population.
While the comparison with the general population is interesting, I would also like to see a comparison with Olympic athletes in general.
To be an Olympics athlete, even without doping, you have to be an outlier physically. In addition, even without doping, there is an intensive training regimen and specialized diet. There is also ultra competitive environment and high stress of competing in front of the whole world and knowing that a fraction of a second may be all the difference between glory winning the gold medal and the obscurity of 4th place. Finally, there is the whiplash where for a few weeks you are the center of attention and then when the Olympics are over, are more or less forgotten, even if you did win the gold.
This environment is pretty likely to have physical and psychological consequences, even apart from the doping, and it would be interesting to see what they are in comparison to doping.
This is correct, so it's a good thing there is an enormous amount of data about the lives of East and West Germans which can be used to control for those differences as well.
How do you control for differences in air pollution and water pollution, differences in food, differences in stress levels. There are too many unknowns in these calculations.
Since it's relative to their direct environment, the only major compensation required would be the amount of training, I think. For the rest, you can compare them to athletes (at similar age and career at the time of the doping) all over the world.
In general the lifespan effects on East and West German Olympians were more modest than 10 to 12 years, but I found this one article which also found a higher mortality risk for German Olympians in general.
What about USSR Olympic athletes? Especially before USSR collapse.
Salient words at the very start of the article are "former athletes... suffer from poverty". East German Olympic athletes suffered poverty, which is a risk factor in any part of the world.
That's why I am asking about USSR statistics before USSR collapse - at that time weightlifters were treated very well, much like at US today, if not better.
It may be a little hard to do this though, the athletes often weren't aware they were doping and to what degree, so you don't really have a good way to split them into doped/non-doped cohorts to do this sort of analysis.
I am talking about poverty, primarily. Athletes from Eastern Germany were trown into poverty when two halves of Germany reunited.
Using USSR and/or Eastern Germany athletes prior to the reunion would provide some kind of baseline to compare to. As well as contemporary US athletes.
While Eastern Germans on average lived >4 years longer than a USAmerican in 1991, that lead has evaporated as of now: US citizens live a couple of months longer than Eastern Germans (and Western Germans).
Very little? They have normal hormone profiles for men, not excessive ones intended to enhance performance. Moreover, they only take hormones the body would naturally produce, not unusual “performance-enhancing drugs”.
Often PEDs are just biological hormones. In particular testosterone, HGH, and estrogen (for off cycling). It is definitely not as clear cut as “PEDs bad”. I tend to agree the impact physically is not high (e: for mortality) but most trans people have mental illness in their lives and the hormones they take can play a role in that.
It's hard to generalize because the East German doping program evolved over time and eventually included other compounds, but the levels of testosterone esters that were administered to the female athletes (typically 25mg/week) were actually lower than typical HRT regimes for trans men.
> the levels of testosterone esters that were administered to the female athletes (typically 25mg/week)
Comparing generic "testosterone esters" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_ester - from the fifties to "testosterone esters" from today, without knowing exactly which kind of medication was involved or how it was administered, doesn't seem like a good way to reach any kind of conclusion.
Also a lot of oral test was used at the time, which as we know now is danger. Hepatoconverted hormones turn your insides into granuloma pate'. Even these days people are taking stuff like Methyltest to the point of having liver pain, which they supplement with tudca, milk thistle, etc.
If you are just "questioning" it for the sake of questioning, throwing shower thoughts out without doing a iota of research into procedures which are a century old? Yes. It's unreasonable for people to ask others to do their homework.
> without doing a iota of research into procedures which are a century old?
Assuming you're referring to procedures around altering one's body to resemble the opposite sex, there're no long term studies on the effects of modern drug treatments, such as lupron, especially when given to children and adolescents.
The highly ideological activists surrounding this issue have made this field a wild-west, and I fully expect in the coming years, there will be more and more similar stories coming from women in particular, who have been damaged by inappropriate hormone treatments prescribed for what turn out to have been unrelated mental health issues.
This is a really good illustration of what sociologist call reification[1] - specifically of gender in this case. What the parent does is confuse their idiosyncratic views with an underlying essentialism in their conceptualization of the universe. It allows people to externalize their thoughts into concepts like reality, human nature, or 'just how things are'. The reason this is a good example is that the author shoots directly at the concept of a 'gender reality' without mincing words. Generally the tactic is to reword personal belief as grounded external knowledge using the copula, but it's an epistemological slight of hand. Like all magic tricks, once you know it it's hard not to unsee it.
1. Berger, Luckmann (1966) The Social Construction of Reality
Oh I know, I just prefer to make them say it rather than trade in ambiguities. You’ll notice when someone asks for a deeper explanation of ambiguous dehumanization they tend to not respond.
it has nothing to do with me, it has to do with people saying what they mean so others can see it. Purposeful ambiguity is a constant effort by fascist groups to try and introduce ideas into discourse while simultaneously denying them trying to undermine critics.
If they never respond why assume it is "purposeful ambiguity"?
Like I said, that's a recipe of just confirming your own suspicions all the time ...
I often don't respond to folks who greatly misunderstand or take my meaning to be something it is very much not.
I don't find that it is worth engaging with folks who assume the worst of people / are policing internet discussions for any distant hint of "fascist groups" or whatever they're looking for.
Also sometimes people ask a question, but its not really a question, its a veiled invite to spar verbally. Indulging those remarks are aiding in your own abuse.
I think the term you are looking for is an "appeal to nature" which differs from the naturalistic fallacy. My comment was not appealing to nature, in that it made no judgement - good OR bad - in defining the synthesis and self-infusion of hormones as unnatural. It just is unnatural. By definition. In contrast with the OP's comment, I believe that's something we should all be able to accept without strife.
While it's true that everything we do is literally a part of nature (nature being the world around us), it makes sense to have a word to define biological substances or events that wouldn't otherwise occur without human intervention. E.g. artificial colors, artificial flavoring.
We do have adjectives to distinguish things that other animals do. When a baby sucks on a teat it is mammalian. When turtle dives underwater then comes out on land to bathe, it is amphibious. When something takes flight it is avian.
Humans are unequivocally more advanced than other animals, so to represent those actions which wouldn't otherwise occur without human presence, we use the term "unnatural". It's a nice adjective - albeit in the context of transgender modification "unnatural" serves no scientific basis, it is just a descriptor, if that's what you're getting at.
It's unnatural to eat burnt meat or take an aspirin. Flameframing a complex issue with dictionary pedantry for messageboard battle is exactly the sort of thing the GP is talking about.
This entire thread started by someone trying to troll and pass off their prejudice as curiosity. It was righteously flagged and the right thing is to leave it at that rather than get into a discussion on the 'naturalness' of trans people which is almost as crappy.
The discussion was NOT about the "naturalness of trans people". The discussion was about whether we can dismiss people as bigoted for using 100% accurately defined adjectives as descriptors - such as "unnatural" or "unhealthy". There's a huge difference and if you can't see that distinction then you're probably better off staying out of the discussion yourself instead of trying to shame me for having it.
Testosterone is an immunosuppressant and leads to a shorter life. Simply cutting off the supply of T to a man can increase his lifespan enough to make up the general gap in lifespan between sexes. [1] There are even some theories about human mating preferences that suggest masculine faces are attractive as an indicator of good genetic quality because if you're able to be drenched in Testosterone and still survive you must otherwise have some above average qualities to make up the difference. [5] (Also recall how estrogen therapy or anti-androgens improved outcomes for male COVID-19 patients. [6])
The biggest risks that come from estrogen therapy are blood clots (estrogen thickens blood) and breast cancer. Blood clots are much less likely when injecting estrogen since it does not pass through the liver which would produce metabolites that complicate matters for your body. Further even though trans women have a much increased risk of breast cancer they are still 70% less likely to get breast cancer than cis women. [3] The risk of prostate cancer also drops by something like two orders of magnitude versus a cis man who has functioning gonads.
Taken all together it seems that if you account for things like the fact that trans women are one of the most impoverished groups globally and suffer from HIV at a rate of about 40% (as in 2/5 trans women have HIV probably because of doing survival sex work) you'd expect a well-off socially accepted trans woman on HRT to live longer than a genetically identical cis man. She has an improved immune system due to lower testosterone and her chances of prostate cancer have plummeted. [4]
While this is certainly an interesting take, it seems like you're cherry-picking data to tell a story that ends in the following conclusion:
>you'd expect a well-off socially accepted trans woman on HRT to live longer than a genetically identical cis man. She has an improved immune system due to lower testosterone...
I don't think this is a very factual conclusion. When it comes to the long term physical and mental outcomes of transgender hormonal therapy, we simply don't know. If we don't know the long term implications of infusing our bodies with synthetic hormones, then I would consider that to be a health risk.
While I fully support adult's decisions to put whatever chemicals they want to into their bodies, hormonal therapy seems like a health risk and is certainly, by any definition of the term, unnatural. I don't believe I am a bigot because of this opinion, either.
> When it comes to the long term physical and mental outcomes of transgender hormonal therapy, we simply don't know.
Correction: you don't know anything about the long-term physical and mental outcomes for patients on HRT HRT, because you did not do any kind of research into it - you wouldn't need to use adjectives as vague as "unnatural" or "synthetic" otherwise.
Correction: we don't know anything about the long-term physical and mental outcomes for patients on HRT. Modern therapies have only been in use since the early 2000's
I am sorry that this fact upsets you and puts you into a hyper-defensive mode but that does not make it any less of a fact. Here is just one of several real studies confirming this fact with regards to cardio health.
"Gender-affirming or cross-sex hormone therapy is integral to the management of transgender individuals yet our appreciation of the effects of such hormones on cardiovascular health is limited. Insights into vascular pathophysiology and outcomes in transgender people receiving sex steroids could be fundamental in providing better care for this population through the management of cardiovascular risk and more broadly advance our understanding of the role of sex and gender in vascular health and disease. In addition, there is a need to understand how gender-affirming hormone therapy impacts cardiovascular disease risk and events as transgender individuals age...Current research about vascular outcomes in adults receiving hormonal therapy is limited by the absence of large cohort studies, lack of appropriate control populations, and inadequate data acquisition from gender identity services. Existing epidemiological data suggest that the use of estrogens in transgender females confers an increased risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke." [1]
Why are you being so antagonistic? You don't really know what this commenter has or hasn't researched on this topic. Please be more polite when expressing disagreement, and focus on the facts at hand, not an imagined adversary.
I was curious about trans people and the health risks of HRT because I have some trans people in my life as of the past few years. When I looked into it I found that there is an association between testosterone levels and mortality along with vulnerability to illness. That did indeed lead me to a particular point of view on the subject and that point of view runs contrary to the common narrative that cross sex hormones are always bad. It's my counter-narrative I suppose.
Not that you asked but in matters of gender it seems like even the most reasonable people seem to fall back on gut feelings over facts. One of those "gut feelings" seems to be that taking cross sex hormones is always or obviously bad for your health. I think it's fascinating to note the fact that much of the literature on the topic only suggests that too much of any sex steroid is bad and in particular testosterone shortens lifespan possibly because it is a weak immunosuppressant. Maybe taking estrogen offsets some of the gains of having low testosterone concerning lifespan but considering that females tend to outlive intact males but not eunuchs it seems likely that the downsides of estrogen are gentler overall.
Insofar as long term consequences, trans women have now been taking HRT since the 1940s so I suspect we'll be seeing some cohorts showing up in published studies more and more. Anecdotally trans women like April Ashley who transitioned in the 1950s, and died this year in her late 80s, and Wendy Carlos who transitioned in the 1970s and is still alive seem to be doing fine. (April Ashley was a very fascinating person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjA9zdIYruU)
Some people are quite happy to have lower testosterone. If you aren't that's fine too. Higher testosterone is associated with shorter lifespan and greater vulnerability to some illnesses. It just is what it is. What I find interesting is how personally some people might take the idea that testosterone has negative health impacts. It has positives: it helps build and maintain muscle and increases energy levels, but that's not the whole story.
Because people with XX chromosomes who use supplementary testosterone have a distinct medical profile, whether or not they chose it voluntarily.
It would be weird, in fact, to wonder about trans women, hormones aren't that fungible.
We could also compare the East German athletes with bodybuilders if we wanted, of both sexes and any gender. Turns out they die early as well.
Also, if you're going to go wading into these waters online: the spelling trans men is preferred over transmen.
Edit to add: Trans men includes Buck Angel, so let's not pretend there's an arbitrary limit on testosterone use there. Much like cis men, some trans men want muscles much larger than any normal amount of testosterone will produce.
Yes, given the likely outcome of raising the issue, including more discrimination against and negative rumors about trans people.
Or rather, no, like most things, it should be ignored until it's confirmed to have data. That is, things are not (true until fault is found), things are (non-true until factual support is provided).
It should be ignored until sampling bias is found to be unlikely. Vague suspicions based on anecdotal experience with chronic illness forums are worthless.
It’s something I have noticed.
Not a scientific survey.
Maybe trans people are more likely to seek help online. Maybe I don’t count well enough.
I keep an eye out for issues I can offer advise for. I do notice trends after awhile.
The biggest is probably people that refuse to change to try a healthy diet.
Some groups just want to complain about how bad life is.
Other groups are trying hard to get better. They take a very methodical approach to treatments and tests.
Lots of people simply need help to know what kind of specialist to see next.
Or advice when doctors give really bad advice. (Happens all the time)
The really confusing ones are often taking lots of hormones.
I don't hang out in chronic illness support groups, but I have lots of transgender friends. I know quite a few people with chronic illness, and only one of them is transgender. Yes, transgender people frequently feel more safe accessing support online than in person. Sounds like sample bias to me.
There’s little evidence that modest courses of anabolic steroids lead to shortened lifespans. Millions of men are on legally-prescribed steroids right now, although we call it “trt”. The East Germans were in relatively unique circumstances, likely comparable or even beyond modern professional bodybuilding dosages, which are in turn way beyond what any professional athlete would take.
From the article:
“Freyberger: The magnitude in East Germany was likely unique. Unbeknownst to them, the athletes were given heavy anabolic steroids along with sex and growth hormones, often in extremely high doses. For many of the victims, the consequences have been dramatic, some of which are only appearing now, decades later.”
> When making the decision voluntarily, you trade years of life for better quality of life.
If you are well-informed about the decision. Most are not, and realistically will not understand the costs and benefits. That's why we don't let companies sell dangrous things freely.
> Which is a tradeoff many people would accept.
I'm not sure what that means. What tradeoff would many accept? It depends on the benefit and the cost. Of course people would take eliminating excruciating chronic back pain at the cost of losing a day of life, but they would not take eliminating hangnails at the cost of losing 10 years.
I'm sure you know that; my point is, what are you actually saying?
I'm very surprised that you're being downvoted here, or lead on frivolous logical goose chases by replies.
Everyone... just make-believe that we're talking about recreational drugs. Rather than a class of drugs that you and your social cohort do NOT take to get high, or to self-medicate your self-diagnosed mental health disorders. Perhaps that thought experiment will help?
I was actually wondering if this is not common knowledge. People getting Testosterone Replacement Therapy are warned about the negative effects including a shorter lifespan. Bodybuilders using steroids know about it. ~10 years is a common figure.
That people who were (involuntarily) given high doses die early is not a surprise. Outside sports, steroids do have their place, even with such a seemingly serious drawback.
But yeah, articles like these are used to drive fear and bans for a lot of drugs. Then they wonder why so many people fall for homeopathy. Because they can't get anything else, that's why.
Because so much money is involved in sports, I think we should legalize it even knowing that it has these health effects.
People volunteering to test performance enhancement will improve our understanding of human biology. If everyone knows they kill you, people will search for versions that do not over time and will be able to weigh risk/reward.
It's not "people volunteering" to test performance enhancing drugs in sport any more than it's "people volunteering" to test the effects of concussion on the brain in contact sports.
It's a perverse set of incentives designed to exploit the underclass into becoming celebrity gladiators for the entertainment of the masses. It is a free choice and so on, but let's not pretend it is a randomized sample of humans in a double-blind study conducted with ethical oversight.
The amount of college graduates is SIGNIFICANTLY higher for them then the average US population. You can't really make the argument that they are an exploited underclass when they are one of the best paid and educated in the country.
It is very common and widely accepted in the US, sadly. And then consider that they don't pay the students. Many colleges bring in over $100 million from sports, using the labor of these people, and don't pay them a dime. Head coaches regularly make $5-10 million; administrators do well too, TV networks and their employees bring in billions.
One of the finest movies ever made about sport is a documentary called "Hoop Dreams," it follows the fortunes of two high-school basketball players attempting to make it into the NBA:
As you've read in the replies, most of the credentials are not worth the paper they're no longer printed on.
But that being said, judging whether athletes are exploited by the characteristics of those who make it all the way to becoming professionals is a little like judging where to put the armour according to the holes in the planes that come back from bombing missions.
The road to becoming a professional athlete is one of filter after filter after filter, with those who get injured cast aside like fruit that has been squeezed. COllege athletes, for example, make millions for the system but are prohibited by university rules from receiving pay or other compensation.
Only a few of them make it to becoming professionals every year. The rest have to go get ordinary jobs, and if they have a bum knee, cognitive issues from concussions, or any other problems, well, too bad for them.
This is especially acute in a country where health care is tied to employment and not part of the social safety net.
I always wonder: How does a parent talk to their 10 year old about things like cheating, hypercompetitive, badly behaving adults, where things are completely unfair and even abusive?
My guess would be that the majority don't and that the majority of parents and 10 year olds competing at this level are basket cases. A lot of high performing areas are like that: a well-adjusted person would never do what it takes to be the top in the field.
Been to a number of after season gathers and announcements. They make a point to call out the ones graduating high school. Every one I’ve seen had been really well adjusted. All going to great schools. Many with scholarships.
Figure skating has kept them out of trouble, focused and with many great life lessons. Lots of good quality friends that are driven to succeed.
The East German staff (team directors and doctors) probably didn't really know which dosis of Doping Medication was the right one for the performance enhancing treatments.
The substances were newly discovered, and in the 1970s/80 nobody on Earth has ever used that human growth hormone on children or young adults.
So, I guess the medical staff simply, systematically, tried a whole range of concentrations on their athletes. Those who then performed best in training were promoted to the Olympic team. Those who received too little were removed from the national team.
And those who received too high concentrations? They had their adolescent bodies messed up, but were simply neglected afterwards. A very cynical program indeed.
HGH has been used for much longer than you give it credit for to address a myriad of growth issues. What the difference is now we have lab derived recombinant HGH rather than that of the cadavers they used to be extracted from.
LAGH is rather new, and Im excited to see where it goes and how it affects treatments of those who want to minimize the frequency of administering it.
131 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] thread> On average, victims of East German doping die 10 to 12 years earlier than the rest of the population. And here's another alarming statistic: A victim of East German doping falls ill 2.7 times as often, and for psychological illnesses, we have calculated a factor of 3.2.
That's fair enough
> Against this background, calls to legalize performance-enhancing drugs are naïve and irresponsible.
Maybe, but this is a bit of a non-sequitur. Especially as the drugs were given unwillingly and with no consideration to individual conditions (and in excess doses)
It was more of an experiment than anything else.
>The magnitude in East Germany was likely unique. Unbeknownst to them, the athletes were given heavy anabolic steroids along with sex and growth hormones, often in extremely high doses. For many of the victims, the consequences have been dramatic, some of which are only appearing now, decades later.
The other thing which is missing in that rather myopic conversation is that after their careers are over most competitive athletes in general have a hard time adjusting to a more "mundane" life which is understandable given that they were training since their childhood to be the best in their respective sport. Money to some extent can bridge that gap but in most sports there isn't much money to be made in the first place. Now give this into the mix of the accumulated harm to the body - at that level you are taking that willingly into account - and some insane overdosing to somehow sustain the damage in a system with unchecked incentives (ideological view), you now have a very clear signal.
In classic bodybuilding where historically virtually all half-openly use/experiment with all kinds of PEDs, one can observe that with time and experience the dosings of e.g. TRT and GH are being finely titrated now. Additionaly because of the more open culture around that topic there is a solid understanding (in the more professional community at least) about the benefits and potential side effects.
Another more serious issue are the effects of extreme weight cutting but I'll leave it at that.
Agree. That is one serious elephant in the room.
Hmm. I don't know about that. There has been a spate of recent deaths of professional bodybuilders in their 30s and 40s despite more knowledge and health checks.
The problem with PEDs in competitive sports is that in many cases, higher doses mean more results. It pushes competitors and coaches out of what might be safe usage into high risk. Although use is admitted in bodybuilding, the vast doses and number of compounds is something most lie / downplay with only a few whistleblowers sharing real world usage.
> Another more serious issue are the effects of extreme weight cutting
Also a PED issue. Some of the Shelby Starne's stacks used in recent deaths of female bodybuilders are insane. Stacking 3 different diuretics, multiple types of stimulant... my god. They looked like they were designed to give people heart attacks.
We can say with some confidence that a small TRT dosage would be beneficial for almost all seniors. But small means really small, just enough to bring their hormones up to par with an average 50 year old body. Anything above that has non-negligible risks for any population and I hope no one will use PEDs with the assumption that they'll never pay a health price for it. I wish it were different but it is what it is.
[0]https://moreplatesmoredates.com/anabolic-steroid-family-tree...
https://youtu.be/jAdG-iTilWU
https://archive.ph/SlmHD
While the comparison with the general population is interesting, I would also like to see a comparison with Olympic athletes in general.
To be an Olympics athlete, even without doping, you have to be an outlier physically. In addition, even without doping, there is an intensive training regimen and specialized diet. There is also ultra competitive environment and high stress of competing in front of the whole world and knowing that a fraction of a second may be all the difference between glory winning the gold medal and the obscurity of 4th place. Finally, there is the whiplash where for a few weeks you are the center of attention and then when the Olympics are over, are more or less forgotten, even if you did win the gold.
This environment is pretty likely to have physical and psychological consequences, even apart from the doping, and it would be interesting to see what they are in comparison to doping.
West Germany is a reasonable control group.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7739809/
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/4/206
Salient words at the very start of the article are "former athletes... suffer from poverty". East German Olympic athletes suffered poverty, which is a risk factor in any part of the world.
That's why I am asking about USSR statistics before USSR collapse - at that time weightlifters were treated very well, much like at US today, if not better.
Using USSR and/or Eastern Germany athletes prior to the reunion would provide some kind of baseline to compare to. As well as contemporary US athletes.
[1] https://www.rki.de/EN/Content/Health_Monitoring/Health_Repor...
[2] https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore...
Comparing generic "testosterone esters" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_ester - from the fifties to "testosterone esters" from today, without knowing exactly which kind of medication was involved or how it was administered, doesn't seem like a good way to reach any kind of conclusion.
Assuming you're referring to procedures around altering one's body to resemble the opposite sex, there're no long term studies on the effects of modern drug treatments, such as lupron, especially when given to children and adolescents.
The highly ideological activists surrounding this issue have made this field a wild-west, and I fully expect in the coming years, there will be more and more similar stories coming from women in particular, who have been damaged by inappropriate hormone treatments prescribed for what turn out to have been unrelated mental health issues.
1. Berger, Luckmann (1966) The Social Construction of Reality
That sounds like a strange method of just confirming what you already believe.
c.f.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/08/14/clash-hig...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/23/alt-right...
Like I said, that's a recipe of just confirming your own suspicions all the time ...
I often don't respond to folks who greatly misunderstand or take my meaning to be something it is very much not.
I don't find that it is worth engaging with folks who assume the worst of people / are policing internet discussions for any distant hint of "fascist groups" or whatever they're looking for.
Thus all the "no I'm saying X, not Y, I don't agree with Y" and the folks just want to go on about how I said Y.
While it's true that everything we do is literally a part of nature (nature being the world around us), it makes sense to have a word to define biological substances or events that wouldn't otherwise occur without human intervention. E.g. artificial colors, artificial flavoring.
We don't have a distinction for when other animals do things, there's no logical reason to separate humans
Humans are unequivocally more advanced than other animals, so to represent those actions which wouldn't otherwise occur without human presence, we use the term "unnatural". It's a nice adjective - albeit in the context of transgender modification "unnatural" serves no scientific basis, it is just a descriptor, if that's what you're getting at.
Arguing with pseudonymous people on internet forums isn't particularly natural either, but here we are.
Finally someone says it. Every time I see a well-done steak, my soul cries. Medium Rare is how The Lord intended it.
Agreed.
>Flameframing a complex issue with dictionary pedantry for messageboard battle is exactly the sort of thing the GP is talking about.
I'm unsure what "flameframing" is but I don't think it's pedantic to define a term that that is key to OP's account of what defines a bigot.
The biggest risks that come from estrogen therapy are blood clots (estrogen thickens blood) and breast cancer. Blood clots are much less likely when injecting estrogen since it does not pass through the liver which would produce metabolites that complicate matters for your body. Further even though trans women have a much increased risk of breast cancer they are still 70% less likely to get breast cancer than cis women. [3] The risk of prostate cancer also drops by something like two orders of magnitude versus a cis man who has functioning gonads.
Taken all together it seems that if you account for things like the fact that trans women are one of the most impoverished groups globally and suffer from HIV at a rate of about 40% (as in 2/5 trans women have HIV probably because of doing survival sex work) you'd expect a well-off socially accepted trans woman on HRT to live longer than a genetically identical cis man. She has an improved immune system due to lower testosterone and her chances of prostate cancer have plummeted. [4]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-eunuchs/the-ultim...
[2] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/12/in-men-high-t....
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403717/#:~:tex....
[4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342512760_Prostate_...
[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/147470491301100508
[6] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/05/estrogen...
>you'd expect a well-off socially accepted trans woman on HRT to live longer than a genetically identical cis man. She has an improved immune system due to lower testosterone...
I don't think this is a very factual conclusion. When it comes to the long term physical and mental outcomes of transgender hormonal therapy, we simply don't know. If we don't know the long term implications of infusing our bodies with synthetic hormones, then I would consider that to be a health risk.
While I fully support adult's decisions to put whatever chemicals they want to into their bodies, hormonal therapy seems like a health risk and is certainly, by any definition of the term, unnatural. I don't believe I am a bigot because of this opinion, either.
Correction: you don't know anything about the long-term physical and mental outcomes for patients on HRT HRT, because you did not do any kind of research into it - you wouldn't need to use adjectives as vague as "unnatural" or "synthetic" otherwise.
I am sorry that this fact upsets you and puts you into a hyper-defensive mode but that does not make it any less of a fact. Here is just one of several real studies confirming this fact with regards to cardio health.
"Gender-affirming or cross-sex hormone therapy is integral to the management of transgender individuals yet our appreciation of the effects of such hormones on cardiovascular health is limited. Insights into vascular pathophysiology and outcomes in transgender people receiving sex steroids could be fundamental in providing better care for this population through the management of cardiovascular risk and more broadly advance our understanding of the role of sex and gender in vascular health and disease. In addition, there is a need to understand how gender-affirming hormone therapy impacts cardiovascular disease risk and events as transgender individuals age...Current research about vascular outcomes in adults receiving hormonal therapy is limited by the absence of large cohort studies, lack of appropriate control populations, and inadequate data acquisition from gender identity services. Existing epidemiological data suggest that the use of estrogens in transgender females confers an increased risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke." [1]
[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31656099/
Not that you asked but in matters of gender it seems like even the most reasonable people seem to fall back on gut feelings over facts. One of those "gut feelings" seems to be that taking cross sex hormones is always or obviously bad for your health. I think it's fascinating to note the fact that much of the literature on the topic only suggests that too much of any sex steroid is bad and in particular testosterone shortens lifespan possibly because it is a weak immunosuppressant. Maybe taking estrogen offsets some of the gains of having low testosterone concerning lifespan but considering that females tend to outlive intact males but not eunuchs it seems likely that the downsides of estrogen are gentler overall.
Insofar as long term consequences, trans women have now been taking HRT since the 1940s so I suspect we'll be seeing some cohorts showing up in published studies more and more. Anecdotally trans women like April Ashley who transitioned in the 1950s, and died this year in her late 80s, and Wendy Carlos who transitioned in the 1970s and is still alive seem to be doing fine. (April Ashley was a very fascinating person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjA9zdIYruU)
It would be weird, in fact, to wonder about trans women, hormones aren't that fungible.
We could also compare the East German athletes with bodybuilders if we wanted, of both sexes and any gender. Turns out they die early as well.
Also, if you're going to go wading into these waters online: the spelling trans men is preferred over transmen.
Edit to add: Trans men includes Buck Angel, so let's not pretend there's an arbitrary limit on testosterone use there. Much like cis men, some trans men want muscles much larger than any normal amount of testosterone will produce.
There's no argument from nature to be made about medically boosting hormone levels.
But the various chronic illness support forums I follow have a lot of trans people with tons of serious issues.
Or rather, no, like most things, it should be ignored until it's confirmed to have data. That is, things are not (true until fault is found), things are (non-true until factual support is provided).
Maybe trans people are more likely to seek help online. Maybe I don’t count well enough.
I keep an eye out for issues I can offer advise for. I do notice trends after awhile.
The biggest is probably people that refuse to change to try a healthy diet.
Some groups just want to complain about how bad life is. Other groups are trying hard to get better. They take a very methodical approach to treatments and tests.
Lots of people simply need help to know what kind of specialist to see next. Or advice when doctors give really bad advice. (Happens all the time)
The really confusing ones are often taking lots of hormones.
When making the decision voluntarily, you trade years of life for better quality of life. Which is a tradeoff many people would accept.
From the article:
“Freyberger: The magnitude in East Germany was likely unique. Unbeknownst to them, the athletes were given heavy anabolic steroids along with sex and growth hormones, often in extremely high doses. For many of the victims, the consequences have been dramatic, some of which are only appearing now, decades later.”
If you are well-informed about the decision. Most are not, and realistically will not understand the costs and benefits. That's why we don't let companies sell dangrous things freely.
> Which is a tradeoff many people would accept.
I'm not sure what that means. What tradeoff would many accept? It depends on the benefit and the cost. Of course people would take eliminating excruciating chronic back pain at the cost of losing a day of life, but they would not take eliminating hangnails at the cost of losing 10 years.
I'm sure you know that; my point is, what are you actually saying?
Everyone... just make-believe that we're talking about recreational drugs. Rather than a class of drugs that you and your social cohort do NOT take to get high, or to self-medicate your self-diagnosed mental health disorders. Perhaps that thought experiment will help?
That people who were (involuntarily) given high doses die early is not a surprise. Outside sports, steroids do have their place, even with such a seemingly serious drawback.
But yeah, articles like these are used to drive fear and bans for a lot of drugs. Then they wonder why so many people fall for homeopathy. Because they can't get anything else, that's why.
OP is likely getting downvoted because the East German doping victims weren't "accepting a tradeoff", eh?
It probably altered my view on doping.
Because so much money is involved in sports, I think we should legalize it even knowing that it has these health effects.
People volunteering to test performance enhancement will improve our understanding of human biology. If everyone knows they kill you, people will search for versions that do not over time and will be able to weigh risk/reward.
It's a perverse set of incentives designed to exploit the underclass into becoming celebrity gladiators for the entertainment of the masses. It is a free choice and so on, but let's not pretend it is a randomized sample of humans in a double-blind study conducted with ethical oversight.
The amount of college graduates is SIGNIFICANTLY higher for them then the average US population. You can't really make the argument that they are an exploited underclass when they are one of the best paid and educated in the country.
Even when they actually have a class to go to, they are dumbed-down like the one described here: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/dumbed-down-math-classe...
Though, not all athletes, of course. The best player at my school was a legitimate mechanical engineer! Most of the rest were business majors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_Dreams
It's well worth a watch.
But that being said, judging whether athletes are exploited by the characteristics of those who make it all the way to becoming professionals is a little like judging where to put the armour according to the holes in the planes that come back from bombing missions.
The road to becoming a professional athlete is one of filter after filter after filter, with those who get injured cast aside like fruit that has been squeezed. COllege athletes, for example, make millions for the system but are prohibited by university rules from receiving pay or other compensation.
Only a few of them make it to becoming professionals every year. The rest have to go get ordinary jobs, and if they have a bum knee, cognitive issues from concussions, or any other problems, well, too bad for them.
This is especially acute in a country where health care is tied to employment and not part of the social safety net.
Imagine a 10 year girl competing against another 10 year maxed to the extreme on steroids.
Figure skating has kept them out of trouble, focused and with many great life lessons. Lots of good quality friends that are driven to succeed.
As a dad, can’t really ask for more.
No need to guess such things, just ask!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Girls_in_Pretty_Boxes
ISI is amazing at keeping kids competing against others at proper skill levels and ages.
That's more Mengele than a sports ethic though...
Sports are not test-labs...
They are ordered by their coaches to take the drugs, and if they refuse orders from their coach their elite sporting career is over.
The substances were newly discovered, and in the 1970s/80 nobody on Earth has ever used that human growth hormone on children or young adults. So, I guess the medical staff simply, systematically, tried a whole range of concentrations on their athletes. Those who then performed best in training were promoted to the Olympic team. Those who received too little were removed from the national team.
And those who received too high concentrations? They had their adolescent bodies messed up, but were simply neglected afterwards. A very cynical program indeed.
LAGH is rather new, and Im excited to see where it goes and how it affects treatments of those who want to minimize the frequency of administering it.