The Ministry of Health and Prevention, MoHAP, has warned that a number of fitness centers are promoting and selling unlicensed and unreliable hormones and steroids for gym-goers. The ministry assured that it will confiscate all prohibited products and any dangerous components of public health.
The banned products were seized for examination at the MoHAP's Quality Control and Research Laboratory for Medical Products, to identify the ingredients of the confiscated products and their harmful impact on public health.
In this regard, MoHAP underlined the integrated coordination with municipalities and health authorities in the country to make sure of not selling unlicensed performance-enhancing drugs, adding that this type of products is pharmaceutical one which is subject to MoHAP’s requirements and monitoring as being responsible for their registration, importation, and use.
“Such products may contain banned steroids or synthetic hormones relating to testosterone. They also may cause dire health consequences on liver and kidney,” added MoHAP.
MoHAP’s Control over the USE of Oral or Injectable Steroids
The Ministry, after having been notified that some fitness instructors and trainers direct the gym-goers to use oral or injectable steroids to enhance their performance or their physical appearance, intensified its monitoring and control procedures over those gyms.
“These fitness centers or gyms are unaware or pretending to be inattentive to the negative impacts of these drugs on the health of young people, especially in light of the tough competition between fitness and bodybuilding centers to attract the largest number of members. They tend to use illegal methods such as promoting banned steroids for increasing the muscle mass of their center’s goers to earn more money,” MoHAP concluded.
Dire Consequences on the Health of Young People
Dr. Hessa Mubarak, Director of Health Empowerment and Compliance Department, highlighted the warnings of global pharmaceutical agencies the use of such products due to their containment on steroid-like substances or synthetic hormones relating to testosterone.
“These substances can be dangerous and cause serious health risks, including serious liver and kidney diseases, especially there’s no control over storage conditions which leads to their damage. In addition, they cause serious side effects such as severe acne, hair loss, increased aggressiveness and depression, and cause life-threatening reactions such as kidney damage, heart attacks, stroke and pulmonary embolism (blockage of one of the central blood vessels in the lungs), and deep vein thrombosis,” Mubarak explained.
Prescription is Needed to Take Hormones
“Most of these synthetic hormones enter the country illegally and are of unlicensed companies and do not conform to international standards. In order to take hormones, especially injectable one, a prescription is needed from a licensed doctor and specialist, and based on medical tests, to make sure that there are no birth defects or malfunction of some organs of the body for the trainee, so as to avoid dire health consequences,” she added.
She warned against getting these hormones from abroad through travelers from countries allowing the purchase of these drugs without a prescription.
Concluding her remarks, Mubarak advised those who are using performance-enhancing drugs to conduct periodic medical examinations, because the long-term use of muscle-building products causes negative effects such as disturbance of hormones in the body that secrete naturally.
Moreover, using synthetic hormones leads to disruption and atrophy of the glands producing these hormones, especially male hormone (testosterone) which causes erectile dysfunction (ED) and infertility.