Common symptoms associated with usage and cessation of anabolic androgenic steroids in men

Sharma A, Grant B, Islam H, Kapoor A, Pradeep A, Jayasena CN

Best practice & research. Clinical endocrinology & metabolism, 2022

Abstract

Anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) have widespread and growing illicit use as image and performance enhancing drugs (IPED), predominantly in young men. Users trying to stop AAS are prone to distressing withdrawal symptoms which may trigger relapse in use. It is important to develop therapies to support AAS withdrawal. The illicit nature of AAS use has impeded the robust characterisation of its clinical withdrawal syndrome within any single study. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review summarising the available clinical studies describing symptoms associated with non-medically indicated AAS use, and AAS withdrawal. Reported clinical features of AAS withdrawal include headache, fatigue, myalgia, restlessness, insomnia, low mood and libido, anorexia, suicidal ideation, body image dissatisfaction, and steroid cravings; novel therapies for AAS withdrawal would need evaluation against these symptoms.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a systematic review, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Induced osteoblast differentiation by amide derivatives of stilbene: The possible osteogenic agents Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters, 2020
On model selections for repeated measurement data in clinical studies Statistics in medicine, 2015
Regulation of GLUT transporters by flavonoids in androgen-sensitive and -insensitive prostate cancer cells Endocrinology, 2014
Region-specific microRNA signatures in the human epididymis Asian journal of andrology, 2018
Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking of 4-Amino-2H-benzo[h]chromen-2-one (ABO) analogs containing the piperazine moiety Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry, 2019
In Vitro characterization of the endocrine disrupting effects of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) on the human androgen receptor Journal of hazardous materials, 2022

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free