Dr. Matt Pitt over at Sherdog.com believes there is ample research to suggest steroids fundamentally alter the playing field by dramatically improving every facet of relevant athleticism in competition athletes. To wit:

It showed two dramatic findings: first, steroids work. Unquestionably and dramatically. Aside from the astronomic international medal count of a tiny nation with little genetic diversity and a third world economy, the data shows quantifiable individual performance improvements. With steroids, 100-meter sprint times were cut almost three quarters of a second -- the difference between a world champion and a runner whose career ends in college. Athletes on steroids put the shot an additional two to five meters (World Record: 23.12m), hurled the javelin eight to 15 meters farther (WR:72.2m) and added as much as 20 meters to their discus throws (WR:74.1m).



Those data are unambiguous: In "strength" sports, anabolic hormones are indispensable. To the degree combat sports are strength dependent -- and the beating Matt Hughes subjected Royce Gracie to at UFC 60 makes that argument forcefully -- the advantages of using steroids are abundantly clear. If that reality is clear to the doctors and scientists who study performance, it is all the more clear to the fighters whose lives, careers and livelihoods depend on gaining that performance advantage. ... These are not isolated cases of over-amped muscle junkies taking bizarre steroid doses and compounding their danger with alcohol and drug abuse -- these are physician-controlled doses in carefully managed athletes. The conceit among fighters that steroids can be used without consequences to speed the healing of an injury or add lean mass is just that: a fanciful notion unenlightened by the evidence of 40 years.



Even for someone not familiar with the GDR’s anabolic hormone data, for someone coming up in smokers and no-name gyms, the benefits of steroids are clear. Anyone can look at the weekend’s baseball box scores, or the latest Hall of Famer's heartfelt confessional, and see the evidence.

The case isn't nearly as open and shut as Dr. Pitt sugests. While no one disputes there are long-term negative health consequences that come with abuse, Jay Hoffman, a professor of health and exercise science at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, in an interview with Scientific American a) disagrees with Dr. Pitt's assertion about what athletic benefit steroids offer and b) also disputes that steroids cannot be taken safely by athletes. First things first:

Why didn’t [Alex] Rodriguez’s batting average improve during the years he took steroids?



There’s limited research indicating that he could actually enhance his batting average with steroids. A batting average is more indicative of performance ability such as hand-eye coordination. However, research with frogs has shown that anabolic steroids can enhance androgen receptors on nerve endings, so there’s some potential for increased reactions. Hitting in baseball is all about reaction time, whether it’s a curveball or a fastball.



The key benefit with anabolic steroids is that they can help you be consistent over an entire baseball season. That’s the reason you’re seeing those higher statistics for Rodriguez from 2001 to 2003. If you take a look at good power hitters in April and May (early in the baseball season that runs from April to September, excluding the playoffs), their numbers are going to be pretty good. But these guys aren’t able to maintain that in August and September. Take the New York Mets: If that team was on anabolic steroids the way they were in 2000, they probably would have made the playoffs the past two years instead of running out of gas late in the season. It makes a big difference when having that little extra.



Now a guy like A-Rod – he trains really hard. With the steroids, he is maximizing his potential. Would he be a great player without them? Without a doubt. Would he be as consistent? The answer to that is probably no.

Then this:

How long do the side effects of steroids last?

All of those side effects are reversible within four weeks of cessation, though women tend to stay masculinized after using steroids. And every athlete who has considered juicing (taking steroids) knows that. Athletes generally go on a steroid-taking cycle for six to eight weeks, and then they come off for about two months before going back on. And when they’re off, side effects revert back to normal.



The athletes who run into major health issues are body builders or wrestlers who get paid based on their external appearance. They can develop what’s known as muscle dysmorphia, which is basically reverse anorexia. Like a person who considers himself or herself fat all the time, body builders and wrestlers look in the mirror and see themselves as being small. Those are the athletes who never come off the cycle.



Are there other health risks from taking steroids?

Steroids could be lethal to someone with an underlying mental or cardiovascular disease. Anabolic steroids are like any other medication. If you have hypertension and your doctor prescribes you a certain medication, such as an ACE inhibitor, there may be contraindications for using that particular medication if you have, say, kidney disease. If an athlete is suffering from a mental illness like depression or bipolar disorder – which many steroid-taking high school athletes who commit suicide allegedly suffer from – anabolic steroids are the wrong performance-enhancing drug to use. But when given in a clinical setting, steroids are relatively safe.



How are steroids used in a clinical setting?

By themselves, steroids are a very effective clinical tool for treating muscle-wasting diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders. Sports scientists around the world study changes in athletes’ testosterone and cortisol levels. Cortisol is a catabolic steroid produced by the adrenal glands above the kidneys and it breaks down lean tissue in the absence of carbohydrates needed for energy. It’s also released in times of stress. Through high-intensity training over the course of a baseball season, testosterone levels go down and cortisol levels go up. The athlete becomes testosterone-depleted, or hypogonadal, and fatigue sets in. That phenomenon is known as "overtraining syndrome."



One way to treat this is to restore testosterone levels using an exogenous (external) source. We do that with men over 50 who have a normal decline in testosterone, though not with the super-pharmacological doses that many athletes use. There’s a lot of talk amongst team physicians about whether it should be permissible to use exogenous testosterone to bring an athlete back up to normal levels. But the issue is not being approached right now, because of the witch hunt that’s going on. There’s such a kneejerk reaction in the sports media about steroids and these things get sensationalized. There’s such a lack of understanding about what steroids do. I think we need to look at this more scientifically.

Hoffman eventually suggests (in team sports anyway) that steroid use should be lifted out of the hands of "gym rats" and into those of team physicians who are better able to monitor health effects over time and give proper medical advice.

Why bring this up? The notion that a mere handful of fighters in professional MMA use steroids is downright laughable. Here's a small anecdote that helps illustrate my point. Aside from testing standards in athletic commissions being "a joke", I had shoulder surgery last May. The surgeon who repaired my torn labrum happened to be a massive MMA fan and one-time physician for the Washington Redskins. This is a doctor with direct experience working with elite athletes. I'll leave the specific details about our conversations private, but suffice it say I asked him whether any notable fighters were, in his medical opinion, taking some form of steroids. He admitted he could only work from conjecture, but the number and status of names he believed are using some form of steroids were shocking to even a world-weary misanthrope like me.

I bring this up to make one final point: either we're going to properly test for steroids or we're not. And if we're not (by the way, we're not), then lifting steroid use out of the shadows of underground pharmacists and into the light of medical supervision is the only acceptable course of action. If steroids can be taken safely, why are we doing it dangerously?