New York Times: Bodybuilders and Kidney Damage (pt 1)

The New York Times did a piece on the link between steroids and kidney damage. The interesting thing is the article singles out bodybuilders and one lone strongman. Each admitted users and now have encountered kidney trouble. Flex Wheeler is the biggest name mentioned in the article but does not directly cite him as a participant or steroid user, but reading the article it seems that is what is being implied. Flex was forced to retire in 2003, at age 37, from a rare kidney disease that later required a kidney transplant. The common link between each is the steroids and that has been pegged as a cause.

We ALL know that steroids is not limited to bodybuilding; we are reminded daily of its presence in baseball and the Olympic games. Both strict testing bodies. However, it just goes to show you that obviously there are ways around the testing or else there wouldn’t be any usage no one would take the chance. So why is bodybuilding singled out? My guess is because a bodybuilder is such an extreme. They don’t have scientists and six-figure trainers behind them, they experiment on their own bodies, listen to chatter in the gym and often think ‘more is better.’

(Continued in Part 2)