Article: Athletes trading steroids for hormones

Anabolic steroids, among the most widely used performance- enhancing drugs, are mostly synthetic substances similar to the male sex hormone, testosterone.

Think of them as testosterone, times 10.

"In particular, they are highly effective for building upper- body strength. And they work incredibly well," said Dr. Harrison Pope, director of the biological psychiatry laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont and a steroid specialist.

Just as testosterone tends to make men more muscular than women in their shoulders, upper arms, and chests, steroids similarly build upper-body muscle mass, only more so.

"You become more male than male. You develop an exaggeration of this musculature, so other ...