Example: roids. Used appropriately, they can help improve your body.

Correction: they can improve aspects of your body, at a very, very steep cost. Pretty much all oral anabolic steroids are C17α-alkylated, and they’re hepatotoxic (i.e., cause liver damage). All steroids will fuck up your lipid profile to one degree or another, and all of them can cause heart disease, specifically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Boldenone in particular will sharply increase red blood cell production, which in turn increases blood pressure, and can cause strokes. All of them will shut down the hypothalmus-pituitary-testicular axis (HPTA) feedback loop in men, leading to testicular atrophy. Most AAS will cause hair loss in men that are sensitive to DHT. AAS can fuck up your hormones enough that men can start lactating (!!!). High doses of testosterone can cause gynecomastia, because testosterone aromatizes into estradiol. In women, all AAS will cause some degree of virilization.

There are not very many IFBB pros that make it to 80; if you want your candle to burn brightly, it’s going to burn out fast.