Anabolic steroids for women become a fetish on social networks and doctors sound alert

“To buy Oxandrolone, call in direct on insta”, says the biography of “tiktoker fit”, whose first three videos are her own testimonies about the supposed wonders of the anabolic steroid to reach the “marombeira” style.

On TikTok alone, the influencer has 40,000 likes and, in pinned videos alone, 418.7 thousand views, in addition to 52.2 thousand followers on Instagram.

A law student, she is just one of many profiles on the network that promote the use of the anabolic oxandrolone for aesthetic purposes. The target audience, unlike most steroids of its kind, is women.

The use for this purpose represents a significant deviation from its original function, since it is a medicine to treat patients with critical or chronic muscle loss, such as the elderly, cases of malnutrition, cancer, AIDS and severe burns.

Oxandrolone is a synthetic hormone derivative, that is, an artificial anabolic steroid that binds to the testosterone receptor and has effects similar to that of this virilizing male hormone. It can cause, in the case of women, physical changes such as deepening of the voice (which may be irreversible), clitoral enlargement, breast atrophy, hair loss, acne and risk of fetal malformations. It is possible that it triggers depression, aggression and irritability.

Endocrinologist and sports physician Clayton Luiz Dornelles Macedo, president of the Department of Exercise Endocrinology at Sbem (Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism), says that the population has been deceived and exposed in a worrying way.

Macedo, who is also coordinator of the Exercise Endocrinology Center and the Exercise Endocrinology Outpatient Clinic at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo), says that there are no studies of good ethical or scientific quality that advocate the use of oxandrolone for aesthetic purposes.

“The doses used for this purpose are much higher than those used clinically and the misleading discourse of fewer side effects puts users at risk”, points out Macedo.

The list of side effects also includes, for men and women, thrombosis, embolism, increase in bad cholesterol (LDL), decrease in good cholesterol (HDL), hypertension, glucose alteration, increased risk of myocardial infarction, rhabdomyolysis (destruction and acute inflammation of the muscles), infertility, stroke, arrhythmia and sudden death.

SBEM condemns, for all the risks mentioned, the use of oxandrolone for aesthetic purposes and has also declared, through its spokesperson, that the side effects of the use of anabolic steroids are underdiagnosed and underreported, and their distribution is linked to routes such as of arms and narcotics trafficking.

“There is currently a normalization, trivialization and permissiveness for the use of these drugs, [mas] there is no safe dose of oxandrolone or any other anabolic steroid for those who do not have a hormone deficiency”, says Macedo.

Patrícia Corradi, an endocrinologist on the Materdei Health Network’s Sports Medicine team, agrees. “The hypertrophy caused by oxandrolone manages to improve a condition of severe malnutrition, which can happen in consumptive diseases, but its indication for aesthetic purposes is completely banned by the societies that regulate this follow-up. The benefit does not justify the risk”, points out Corradi.

In 2018, nutritionist and influencer Natalia Bravo Penariol started doing Crossfit and, during the classes, realized that she would need medical help to improve her performance and gain lean mass. She had recently become a mother and lost weight with breastfeeding, which made her dissatisfied with her own body, which was already considered thin.

To achieve his goals, he started using oxandrolone, which was prescribed by an endocrinologist.

“The doctor recommended a low dosage and in the first month I already felt a difference: greater resistance to training and I started to gain lean mass”, says Penariol.

When he started competing, he added another anabolic, boldenone. “I ended up gaining 14 kg of lean body mass during this period and continued with the oxandrolone. At a low dose, there is not so much virilization, [mas] I had clitoral enlargement, my voice deepened a lot, and after my first cycle, when I stopped, I had alopecia. My hair fell out, my skin also broke out a lot, mostly because of the boldenone”, says the influencer.

In 2020, she suspended use due to the pandemic, but has since resumed and is still alternating the drug with other substances.

Penariol states that it is necessary to have discipline in training, in addition to knowing the adverse effects. “I train absurdly, I follow a spreadsheet, I go on a diet. When I didn’t, I even told my followers, I gained weight with the use of anabolic steroids. It greatly increases your metabolism, makes you more agitated, more accelerated, so you end up feeling hungry”, he reinforces.

Currently, she turns to the steroid for maintenance purposes. “There’s nothing you can do that won’t have side effects. I get a lot of people inspired by my body and even patients in the office saying ‘wow, I want a body like yours’. I’m not going to generate frustration or sell something that doesn’t exist. I say: the body density I have is physiologically impossible for a woman to have naturally”, she highlights.