I don't believe the results of this study. I realize that's a bit of hubris on my part, as the researchers have done the research, and I've just read the articles about the research. I'm sure Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, knows what he's doing, but his conclusion can't possibly be correct:
In the study, Goldberg and his colleagues collected data on anabolic steroid use among teen girls using a national sample of U.S. high schools done in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the survey, 7,544 teen girls in grades nine through 12 answered questions about sports participation, steroids, ecstasy use and other illegal or unhealthy behaviors.There's just no way that's true. In a middle schools with 250 girls, 17 or 18 have used anabolic steroids?
"In seventh grade, over 7 percent admitted steroid use," Goldberg said.
My theory is that this is based on self-reporting, and that most of these girls don't know what steroids are. The girls who said they used steroids probably used diet pills and don't know that they're not the same thing as steroids. If that many girls are using diet pills, that's noteworthy and could be the sign of a significant public health problem. But if 7 percent of seventh grade girls say they use steroids, that tells me that 7 percent of seventh grade girls don't know what steroids are.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-06-2007 @ 11:51AM
carl said...
Oh no no no it is possible..and it is happening!! the husband of a teacher and coach would know
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6-06-2007 @ 12:06PM
Linn Goldberg said...
I certainly understand that study done by the Centers for Disease Control could be incorrect, and girls who said they used anabolic steroids were unclear or confused about the question. However, if this is the case, then why did the study show that these particular girls were high risk takers; more likely to abuse cocaine and have sexual relations before age 13. Did they not know what cocaine was? Were they confused about sex? You certainly can have a theory about whether they had misconceptions, but then it is up to those who question this to study the analysis and the concurrent problems associated.
Our goal was not to address the validity of the percentage but to characterize the girls who reported steroid use. the associations with self reported steroid use were marked and pervasive in several domains - drug use, violence, sexual activity and psychological issues. If all self reported use was due to a general problem with the questionnaire and confusion about the issue of steroids, we would have expected it to be more uniformly distributed across all groups, so that we would not have observed the marked increase in relative risk for the other health harming actions.
This study somewhat mirrors the use of steroids among boys done about a decade ago. Let's say the girls who had asthma were confused and said they used steroids (the antiinflammatory steroids, e.g., "cortisone"). However, we looked at the girls with asthma and more than 90% said they did not use steroids.
Thus, because the concurrent risks were very apparent, these girls were likely NOT confused and it does not reflect simple diet pill use.
The database is ready for anyone to look at the correlations of use of steroids or other drugs. It is easy to say, "these data must be wrong." If others think so, then they need to analyze the data and tell us why, not just make statements based on their intuition.
Linn Goldberg, M.D.
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6-07-2007 @ 2:42AM
Linn Goldberg said...
Last comment: The reporter misquoted the study. It was over 7 percent of 9th graders, not 7 percent of 7th graders. The percentages were computed by the CDC, based on their surveys, not our surveys.
Linn Goldberg, M.D.
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6-07-2007 @ 9:47AM
George Mitchell said...
Steroids have beome ubiquitous in high school sports. So why not in non-athletes too?
Fools who believe that kids do not dope would believe in Nike swooshes and:
college sports are clean
NFL is clean
George Mitchell-Disney/ESPN and MLB are honest
Lance Armstrong is noble
Everyone in top line sport use steroids. No exceptions whatsoever. Only empty and meaningless denials.
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