Lance Armstrong beat the French at their national sports: drugging, lying, and cycling.*

Excerpted from Hormone Secrets: feel great and age well using the bioidenticals by Robert Yoho, MD (ret).

US federal prosecutors tried to fine him $100 million. Their goal was to boost their careers by destroying people, and a superstar turned villain was a perfect candidate. They spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and settled for $5 million—an abject loss.

Whatever you think of Armstrong, the French, prosecutors, or athletic doping, the following is clear. Over the past four decades, sports became drenched in drugs. They are integral; they are not going away, and they enhance performance. If you do not believe this, particularly if you think Armstrong is a cheater, spend 20 minutes watching mainstream strength sports such as CrossFit championships. These performers parrot Lance: “We never tested positive.”

Yet the press labels Armstrong “disgraced.” They never acknowledge their hypocrisy: nearly everyone in America—including them—takes powerful prescription drugs every single day.

*Give thought to what we do here in the US before being too critical of the French.

My mission is to improve health and longevity for people who have declining hormone levels. I recommend higher doses than most physicians, but I am not knowledgeable about sports use. If I openly advocated it, my peers would cast me out as a renegade.

An athlete’s aim is to maximize performance. If you decide to supplement, begin by learning the basic information here. Then get coaching, take responsibility for your actions, and become an expert. You may be taking health risks, although the concerns are exaggerated.

As you explore what works and what is safe, be cautious and skeptical. Big Pharma, the journals, the medical mainstream, the supplement makers, and the bodybuilding industry all have conflicts of interest—they are selling something. Most have little concern about damaging you while they get rich. I would caution you, in particular, to avoid believing random articles from internet searches. Most are written by corporate sources. And most doctors who prescribe hormones have a lot of the story wrong as well.

Remember that half of the standard medical practice is questionable, and the medical journals are unreliable (see my other book, especially The Journals’ Sins are the Editor’s Sins chapter that is reproduced in the bonus section). Rick Collins (cgmbesq.com), an attorney who defends athletes, wrote to me about bodybuilding sources:

[They] (including the magazines) have been historically far, FAR closer to the truth than mainstream physicians on issues of nutrition, exercise, and ergogenic drugs. Bodybuilders saw the value of fat in the diet when doctors were still advising patients to eat “low fat” diets–poisoning them with sugar and excessive carbs. Bodybuilders knew the importance of resistance training for decades while clueless doctors were advocating that all you need is aerobic exercise. Bodybuilders knew steroids build muscle when medical orthodoxy insisted that steroids didn’t work—and rigged studies to “prove” it. Bodybuilders knew the risks of testosterone and HGH were wildly exaggerated and distorted decades ago–while doctors STILL have no clue. Of course, the downfall of bodybuilders is the mindset of excess–“more is better.”

There must be limits on the doses, but they are unclear. Testosterone produces acne, hair growth or loss, sterility, and testicular atrophy (small balls). Women may get deeper voices and enlarged clitorises. The FDA says that testosterone increases heart disease, but the studies purporting to show this are wrong. If you use estrogen and have a uterus, you must use progesterone or risk a higher chance of uterine cancer. High doses of vitamin D3 and thyroid can cause toxicity. Testosterone relatives, such as methylated or alkylated anabolic steroids, can cause liver damage. This short list is nearly all the known problems of hormone use.

Criminal prosecution for anabolic steroid possession is unlikely but can cost thousands of dollars and result in jail time and a criminal record. Federal and state agencies are colonized by people who waste our tax money enforcing these laws. Mail inspectors sometimes catch drugs as they are shipped into the country, and the large quantities used by bodybuilders attract attention. Gangs of federal employees spend their time posing as mail delivery people to prove steroid users ordered drugs abroad and delivered them here.

If you consider using these medications, decide what you are trying to do. Getting bigger and stronger—to a point—is a legitimate goal, even if you are not competing. But is it meaningful for you to become a better performer at the expense of violating rules? How high are the risks of being caught and disgraced? Are you a professional athlete, or is this a vanity project?

I am not implying these are ethical questions. Nor do I know how to make competitions fair when drugs are used. If we leave sports unregulated, doses will escalate to health-damaging levels. Rick Collins comments further:

It’s said that the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose. So, while medically bringing your low testosterone levels into the normal range may be safe and greatly beneficial (let’s say, with 100 to 200 mg of a prescribed testosterone ester per week), taking ten times that dose using black-market steroids, along with a cornucopia of other anabolics and ancillaries, especially for extended periods and without medical supervision or monitoring, will almost certainly NOT be good for your heart. Author’s comment: serious bodybuilders start at about 1000 mg a week of injectable testosterone or similar hormones (five times the usual men’s hormone replacement dose). They then “stack” or add oral steroids and other medications such as thyroid, HGH, and estrogen blockers.

The exact boundaries between harm and good are unknown. Hormone dangers are overstated or possibly nonexistent, depending on what you do. For older people, the risks of avoiding these medications are far higher than using them. The whole thing is up to you—it is your body.

Is she taking anabolics?

Many women in Los Angeles are using male doses of testosterone. I know one who injects 200 mg of cypionate every week. Another takes only oxandrolone (Anavar), a related anabolic steroid. She is setting national age-group weightlifting records. Other women are bodybuilders who achieve muscularity and definition that would be otherwise impossible. During competition season, they inject 300 to 400 mg of testosterone cypionate a week and take thyroid, diuretics, and other drugs orally.

These women love sex, feel feminine, and have lots of energy. They like their muscles and enjoy having large clitorises. Some of them asked what I thought. I told them they were in unknown territory and that there were no guarantees. I said my best guess was that they were not damaging their longevity, but that they might be permanently suppressing fertility.

Carefully consider what you are doing. Blood testing helps. Sugar, liver enzymes, cholesterol, and of course the levels of hormones themselves can be an index of what is happening to your body. Testing may be obtained without a prescription at LifeExtension.com in Florida. Your blood will be drawn at a local lab and the results emailed back to you.

Get guidance and support. Listen to your friends about your behavior, and if it changes, reconsider the doses. If you can find a knowledgeable doctor who works in sports, hold on to them and be respectful. Physicians are so conservative and regulated now that such an animal is almost a unicorn. Most doctors recommend hormone doses that are too small to help aging people, let alone make athletes perform better.