The Underground World of Designer Steroids

By Laura Davies

Ever since competitive sport became a thing, humans have been doping. Ancient Greeks and Romans would drink bull urine, eat shrooms and consume animal testicles, all in the hope of gaining a competitive edge.

Today it’s estimated that between 14 and 39% of our elite athletes are doping, and including amateurs, there are around 3 to 4 million users of performance-enhancing drugs.

Of course, this is usually illegal, depending on the country, and completely prohibited in competitive sports, a rule enforced with testing, fines, and bans. But cheats will always find a way to cheat, and thanks to designer steroids, drugs specifically created to evade all known tests, it’s easier than ever, and no one has to lose their testicles for it. They might shrink a bit, though.

Invention of Professional Doping

In the 1880s, Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin became the first known juicer in competitive sport. Unfortunately for him, testosterone wouldn’t be discovered and purified for another 50 years, so he took the only thing available to him, the Brown-Séquard elixir, a substance derived from the testicles of dogs, monkeys, and guinea pigs.

Unlike the dopers of today, Galvin’s experiment was hailed as a triumph rather than a scandal, with the Washington Post declaring, “If there still be doubting Thomases who concede no virtue in the elixir, they are respectfully referred to Galvin’s record in yesterday’s Boston-Pittsburgh game. It is the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery.”

Viewing this story through a modern lens has led many to call for Galvin’s removal from the Hall of Fame. A suitable fate for anyone found to be using performance-enhancing drugs. Fortunately for Galvin, though, the Brown-Séquard elixir was a failure, and studies have since shown that any hormone contained in the potion would’ve been biologically ineffective. So, he consumed all those testicles for nothing except maybe a placebo effect.

What Charles Brown-Séquard had been attempting to provide with his elixir was, of course, testosterone; he just didn’t know it. Known best as the male sex hormone, testosterone is an anabolic androgenic steroid, or AAS. Essentially, it’s a large molecule responsible for the development and maintenance of male characteristics, and it does this by binding with the androgen receptor in a cell.

Upon its discovery, scientists were quick to realise its potential applications for treating conditions like muscle weakness, anaemia, hormone-related cancers, and hormone disorders. Huge amounts of funding were channelled into testosterone, and scientists developed scores of similar compounds designed to act on the androgen receptor, which produced variations in potency and side effects.

Soon, it became clear that these wonder steroids had more potential than as treatments. They were enhancements, and by 1960, athletes were using them to boost performance, increase muscle mass, and dramatically cut their recovery times. Doping suddenly became much more palatable and, therefore, popular.

Tragically, though, on August 26th, 1960, during the Rome Olympics, performance-enhancing drugs reached their logical conclusion. Danish cyclist Knud Jensen collapsed, fractured his skull, and died after taking an amphetamine, the 2nd ever death in Olympic history. Then, in 1967, British cyclist Tommy Simpson died after amphetamine consumption during the Tour de France.

Simpson’s death was the catalyst needed for sporting agencies to start taking doping more seriously. The Olympic Committee was the first to respond by banning it and implementing the first drug tests. Anabolic steroids were initially left off the list of banned substances but were later added in 1975. Other organisations soon followed suit, and today AASs are prohibited by all major sporting associations.

The BALCO Affair

To enforce the ban, surprise urine tests were introduced and analysed with mass spectrometry. This breaks up the molecules into fragments and sorts them by their mass. As the chemical groups found in steroids have characteristic masses, these are simple to identify and use as evidence of doping.

Of course, in theory, if you could remove or modify these chemical groups to have a different mass, you could create a steroid capable of evading the testing. And that’s exactly what happened with the world’s first designer steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).

It was developed in secret by Patrick Arnold, an American organic chemist with a background in creating and marketing steroids as supplements. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of his products, he failed to cash in. His first success, androstenedione, he sold wholesale, with a vast share of the profits going to the retailers. And his second, 1-AD, was banned by a 2005 amendment to the Controlled Substance Act, which caused him to lose 60% of sales and go out of business.

So, when a sports nutrition centre approached him to design an undetectable steroid, he was more than happy to oblige. As he later recalled, “I didn’t feel I was jumping into anything more than [a potential problem] with a sports governing body.” He attributed his motivation for the project to nothing more than curiosity about the effect his drugs could have on well-trained athletes.

The man who’d approached him was Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative. The business had begun offering athletes free blood and urine analyses and then selling them their required supplements. But as he took on higher-performing clients, he needed to provide higher-performing drugs, which is where Arnold came in.

Of course, Conte describes his motives as far nobler, saying, “Finally, I got to a point where I basically realised that these athletes didn’t have a choice. I knew there were tremendous risks with it, but it had to do with looking out for the safety of the people that you work with. And knowing that they are going to do it with or without your assistance — only, without your assistance, they are going to buy it down a dark alley out of the trunk of a car behind a gym somewhere.”

So, in secret, he had Arnold create the designer steroid THG. It was never tested for safety or licensed for legitimate medical use, which kind of blows his public-spirited defence out of the water. But it did successfully outwit mass spectrometry. So, in 2001, BALCO started marketing it as “The Clear” to competitive athletes. The USP of clean urine tests, right there in the name.

Unsurprisingly, the drug was a hit, and at least 25 high-profile sportspeople were quick to sign on as BALCO clients, including baseball player Barry Bonds and track and field champion Marion Jones. Conte was raking it in, but according to him, “I was simply having a lot of fun. It was exciting to be in the trenches, to be at these world championships and Olympics, and Super Bowls and travel all over the world. Some people may view this as being reckless and taking enormous risks, but it was very exciting, it was very fun.”

However, his success was short-lived. After just a year, BALCO caught the attention of federal agents, who launched an investigation into the sale of banned performance-enhancing drugs. Then in 2003, Trevor Graham, the former coach of Jones and her partner Tim Montgomery, sent a syringe filled with THG to the U.S. Anti-doping Agency as a tip-off.

With the sample in hand, it took the Director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab, Don Catlin, and his team just six weeks to devise a test that could detect it. BALCO was raided, and Catlin ran 550 stored samples from athletes, detecting 20 uses of THG.

Some admitted knowingly taking the drugs. Others, like Jones, initially lied and later confessed, and a few, like Bonds, still claim that they had no idea what they were taking. Many of the athletes were stripped of their medals, including Jones, who had to hand over the five Olympic medals she’d taken home from Sydney, and some served short prison sentences. For their part in it, Conte received a sentence of 4 months in jail, and Arnold got 3.

Getting Ahead of the Dopers

Although the discovery and subsequent crackdown on THG was a triumph for authorities, it was just firefighting. You see, anti-doping tests were targeted, meaning analysts needed to know the structure of what they were looking for before they could detect it. So identifying THG simply added to an ever-growing list of banned substances. It did nothing to defend against new designer steroids coming to market.

In 2004, Conte said to reporters, “You think it’s over just because they’ve indicted me? Please. There’s a new version out there right now.” And he was right.

Just months later, Canadian customs officials seized a suspicious oily substance coming across the border from the U.S. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was alerted to the seizure by an anonymous email, and the two associations worked together to identify it. Analysis revealed it to be desoxymethyltestosterone (DMT), a new designer steroid with the ability to increase strength, muscle mass, and stamina.

More worryingly, it was far more complex than THG. Professor Christiane Ayotte, Head of a WADA Lab in Montreal, explained: “THG was a modification of gestrinone [a female fertility drug] by a simple one-step reaction. But in this case, we know, because we exactly reproduced the way they made this product, that it is at a level of sophistication that we have not seen before. We now have chemists with a very serious organic chemistry background helping these people distribute these things to athletes.”

As athletes’ samples are stored for retrospective testing, the next step was to check how many had used DMT at the Athens Olympics and other recent competitions. Fortunately, in this case, it seemed they were one step ahead of the dopers, and none of the tests came back positive.

Rethinking the Drug Tests

Getting locked into this slow game of whack-a-steroid was a nightmare for both sporting bodies and the regulators, but all the media attention took the problem to a few scientists who were able to look at it in a different way.

For example, Dr. Barry Forman is a geneticist specialising in seeking out new hormones to interact with our so-called orphan receptors. These are the 35 receptors in our cells that have no known drug or hormone associated with them. He wants to switch them on and see what they do.

But when he heard about THG and DMT on the radio one night, he had a eureka moment. What if he turned his research around and applied it to the problem of doping? Instead of analysts attempting to identify substances individually hiding in the blood or urine, why not just test to see if anything in the blood activates the androgen receptor?

This method has since been applied by a number of scientists who are attempting to refine it, apply it to urine rather than blood, and hopefully speed the process up to minutes instead of hours.

But is it working?

Unfortunately not. Due to the time and expense, it’s estimated that only around 10-15% of athletes are tested per competition. Plus, these drugs don’t stay in your system forever. As Conte explained, “If you’re smart, you’ll never get caught. The research shows that if you go home from the ballpark, and take a fast-acting testosterone, it will peak at 1 in the morning, get down before the 4-to-1 TE ratio by 4 in the morning, and by the time you get to the ballpark, you can’t test positive.”

This was a weakness exploited by Alex Bosch, the guy in charge of Biogenesis, an anti-ageing clinic that provided athletes with programs of performance-enhancing drugs on the side.

These drugs, human growth hormone and testosterone, weren’t designer and could be picked up by traditional tests. However, Bosch had studied the testing programs and knew how long his drugs stayed in the system, so he easily designed injection regimes able to avoid the checks, “If you had the knowledge that I had, the experience that I had, and you know the truth about the testing and the flaws, it was almost a cake walk actually.” He said.

The concern is that if someone like Bosch, with no formal training and only traditional drugs, could evade the authorities so effectively, what could be achieved with a steroid designed to pass through the body more quickly? As far as we know, it could already be out there.

Risks and Side Effects

Another major issue with designer steroids are their side effects. With safety-tested drugs, men might experience shrunken testicles, impotence, or breast enlargement. Women may develop facial hair and an irreversible deepening of their voice. Both sexes also increase their risk of baldness, heart disease, and liver cancer.

In the case of new designer steroids, the substances are rarely tested, and we have next to no control over their production or supply. The majority are being bought and shipped over from labs in India and China, and those who want to operate in the U.S. can do so with only $10–20,000 worth of equipment.

For example, when Matt Cahill, a serial founder of dodgy supplement companies, decided to bring a new designer steroid to market, it couldn’t have been easier. He had no degree or background in chemistry and didn’t even bother hiring any scientists to develop his product.

Instead, he used the easiest method available to evade the drug tests: pick a chemical the world has forgotten about and is therefore not tested for by the authorities. In his 2008 deposition, he explained, “I found the chemical name in a book that contains a bunch of other steroids. The book was Androgens and Anabolic Agents, a chemistry reference published in 1969.”

Then, using Alibaba, he found a lab in China willing to make it for $20,000 per kilo, a firm to put it into capsules, and a company to print the labels. Just like that, he’d created Superdrol, a steroid-fueled supplement he marketed to fitness pros. Of course, the active ingredient, Methasteron, had never been tested on humans. But, based on his high school education and studies into similar drugs, Cahill concluded it was probably safe in low doses and tried it on himself and some friends for a few weeks.

When they didn’t die, he launched the first batch of 2,200 bottles, and they sold out in 15 minutes.

Unfortunately for his customers, Methasteron turned out to be more dangerous than Cahill had hoped, and soon reports of liver issues started to roll in. Then, in 2005, Jareem Gunter, a University senior on a full baseball scholarship, went into liver failure, requiring a transplant. Although he survived, he lost his scholarship and was forced to drop out. Today he works at a high school, warning his students, “If it’s not FDA-approved, don’t touch it.”

Fortunately, the ready availability of designer steroids doesn’t seem to have translated into deaths. But red flags have been raised around dependence, aggression, and domestic violence. Another disturbing side effect is that these steroids are now being taken by kids.

3 to 5% of children in sport are doping, and a staggering 3 to 11% of American teenagers have used the drugs. Either for a competitive edge or simply aesthetics. As Roger Blake, assistant executive director of the California Interscholastic Federation, puts it: “I think the whole BALCO fiasco kind of put this out in the spotlight for people to realize this isn’t just a professional athletic problem, it’s all of ours.”

Key Takeaways

• Historically, athletes have used various substances to gain a competitive edge, from ancient practices to modern designer steroids.
• The BALCO scandal revealed the use of designer steroids like THG, evading traditional drug tests and affecting numerous high-profile athletes.
• Designer steroids pose significant health risks, including liver issues, dependence, and aggression, with some affecting even young athletes.
• Current anti-doping methods are limited, with only a small percentage of athletes tested per competition, allowing some to evade detection.
• New testing methods are being developed to detect any substance activating the androgen receptor, aiming to stay ahead of dopers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the estimated percentage of elite athletes who are doping?

It is estimated that between 14 and 39% of elite athletes are doping.

What was the first known instance of doping in competitive sport?

The first known instance of doping in competitive sport was in the 1880s when Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin used the Brown-Séquard elixir, a substance derived from animal testicles.

What are designer steroids?

Designer steroids are drugs specifically created to evade all known tests, making it easier for athletes to dope without being detected.

What was the BALCO scandal?

The BALCO scandal involved the creation and distribution of the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) by Patrick Arnold and Victor Conte, which was used by numerous high-profile athletes.

What are the risks and side effects of designer steroids?

Designer steroids can cause side effects such as shrunken testicles, impotence, breast enlargement, facial hair, deepening of the voice, baldness, heart disease, and liver cancer. They are also associated with dependence, aggression, and domestic violence.

How do designer steroids evade detection?

Designer steroids are created by modifying chemical groups to have different masses, making them difficult to detect with traditional mass spectrometry tests.

What is the current method of detecting designer steroids?

Scientists are developing methods to test for the activation of the androgen receptor in blood or urine, which could potentially speed up the detection process.

What percentage of children in sport are doping?

It is estimated that 3 to 5% of children in sport are doping.

What was the impact of the BALCO scandal on the athletes involved?

Many athletes involved in the BALCO scandal were stripped of their medals, and some served short prison sentences. For example, Marion Jones had to hand over the five Olympic medals she won in Sydney.

What is the estimated percentage of American teenagers who have used performance-enhancing drugs?

It is estimated that 3 to 11% of American teenagers have used performance-enhancing drugs.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: The Underground World of Designer Steroids
• Hero image source by Vladislav Bezrukov / openverse, by.

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