I wonder what other drugs the subjects were using. Insulin is a particularly nasty thing to use.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
yes there can be, but not to steroids potential danger. they took other drugs, so how does this prove anything regarding danger of steroids. they may have been idiots who drank a shitload as well. so its not that interesting
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
No nothing can be. There are too many confounding variables and no reasonable connection can be made from that study. It’s poorly done
[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
No nothing can be. There are too many confounding variables and no reasonable connection can be made from that study. It’s poorly done
[/quote]
I decided to take some Test simply because I was fed up with no longer progressing. After 10 years natty and having built a decent foundation I just wanted to be bigger and stronger!
I’m very careful with my approach to AAS use. I get blood tests during and after cycle. Keep cycles short, plus Test only and some kind of oral.
Side effects for me aren’t bad. No hair loss, some mild hair growth on my chest and upper back and of course the dreaded acne when coming off. This i solve with low doses of accutane, which isn’t ideal.
Family, legality and employment aren’t a concern. My Wife knows, I still make her babies on demand, and my personality doesn’t change from on-PCT-off. I’m self employed so no chance of getting the sack, plus gear is legal here and good quality, well dosed stuff is easy to find.
The only regret I have when it come to AAS is the fact I didn’t start 5 years earlier!
For me, there are many reasons why I don’t want to get on gear, but I’ll keep it short for y’all.
- The main and only real reason is: I don’t think it’s worth it… yet.
I mean that I want to completely maximize my natural gains and pay my dues before I would even consider getting on the juice. Not to look down on those young’n’s that jump on it early, but I think that anything worth having does not come easy. Sure people around my age (24) juice all the time and don’t care about the repercussions on their body… yet. but for me it’s about wanting to be the biggest I can get. It’s simple, the bigger I am before starting, the bigger I can become.
My two cents
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
Are you fucking kidding me? No “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, which if you read the full-text, is actually rather poorly conducted. That being said, a number of interesting observations were made in this study.
First off, I completely disagree with the conclusion drawn by the authors that AAS use is associated with other illicit drug use. I’m not saying that this is improbable whatsoever, but that the authors overstepped their boundaries in drawing such a conclusion. Are AAS-users that die unnatural, premature deaths representative of the general AAS-using population? By the same token, we could claim an association between wearing pants and dying unnatural deaths because most people who die unnatural deaths happen to be wearing pants at the time.
The data is also essentially meaningless because of a lack of controls. I’ll illustrate this with a point I found interesting in the study: the high mortality rate due to violent deaths. Well there is certainly a higher rate here than the general population, there are some confounds (drug use, SES, mental health, etc.) that we can only deal with by using matched samples. A more productive question here would be: are polydrug-users that use AAS more likely to die violent deaths than matched controls of polydrug-users that do not use AAS and AAS-users that do not use recreational drugs? Without matched controls, drawing meaningful conclusions becomes difficult. Which brings me to another point regarding the authors’ main conclusion. They claim an association between AAS and recreational drug use, but they have no way of knowing (nor do they even claim to know) whether this has reached a threshold for statistical significance. Why? Because they have no fucking data to compare it to.
Another weak point is the small sample size and complete lack of stated primary outcomes. Much better studies (e.g. that famous one that linked Vitamin D to lower risk of cancer) with larger samples have drawn heavy criticism for drawing conclusions based on secondary outcomes. When you have a study that only has secondary outcomes (i.e. let’s just do a bunch of assays on our sample and see what happens without actually looking for anything specific to happen) that also uses a small sample you are bound to get something, even if there is a high chance of detecting false positives.
And I could go on. But I won’t. I’ve already written a novel.
I respect your accomplishments as a lifter, but if you honestly do believe that “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, your critical thinking skills (or at least those regarding science) leave much to be desired. The data they collected is interesting to say the least, but it’s just that: data, for it has no context for scientific use. This kind of paper would be acceptable if the authors did not attempt to draw conclusions from their data and clearly presented the paper as a case study. Since they did not do this, I evaluated the paper as I would a correlational study and as a correlational study, quite frankly, this paper fucking blows.
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
Are you fucking kidding me? No “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, which if you read the full-text, is actually rather poorly conducted. That being said, a number of interesting observations were made in this study.
I respect your accomplishments as a lifter, but if you honestly do believe that “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, your critical thinking skills (or at least those regarding science) leave much to be desired.[/quote]
(1) Yep, I should have used interesting “tidbits” rather than “conclusions”. Big deal. I think I introduced the text as a “fun little study” - should have given away that I wasn’t given much credence to it, but I’m glad you guys pointed out the obvious.
(2) Don’t you worry about my reasoning skills - they are perfectly fine. In fact, I would argue they are way better than my lifts.
For me, my number one focus has always been performance in some form. I’ve played football and ran track all through highschool and just completed my first power lifting meet. I’m 138lbs with a 430 DL, 330 squat, and 215 bench at 18 years old. I’ve always been fairly strong in comparison to my bodyweight and size. In football, I was always one of the kids who enjoyed to hit. Hell, I even didn’t mind getting hit. In the back of my mind there was always been that thought, how good would I be if my size wasn’t a limiting factor. Or, “I’m strong already, imagine what I’d be with gear.” Up until my junior year my number one focus was to somehow get to play college ball. When I realized being 5’5 140lb rb/slot reciever wasn’t plausible in college football, I had strong urges to use PEDs to give myself what god didn’t.
Fortunately I’ve grown to realize football isn’t everything and have been able to focus on powerlifting. I’ve always been challenged with my size and enjoyed being the underdog. I will stay natural in order to push myself to my own natural limits. Not only do I want to see what I can do, but I realized the hard work I’ve had to put in has forged the person I’ve become. I want to remain natural until I feel that naturally I’m maxed out. But who knows, things are always changing. Maybe by that time, I’ll be satisfied with what I’ve achieved and see no reason not to be natural. I don’t see steroids as a morale issue. It only becomes an issue when you claim natty status or compete in sports where it’s illegal.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
Are you fucking kidding me? No “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, which if you read the full-text, is actually rather poorly conducted. That being said, a number of interesting observations were made in this study.
I respect your accomplishments as a lifter, but if you honestly do believe that “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, your critical thinking skills (or at least those regarding science) leave much to be desired.[/quote]
(1) Yep, I should have used interesting “tidbits” rather than “conclusions”. Big deal. I think I introduced the text as a “fun little study” - should have given away that I wasn’t given much credence to it, but I’m glad you guys pointed out the obvious.
(2) Don’t you worry about my reasoning skills - they are perfectly fine. In fact, I would argue they are way better than my lifts.[/quote]
(1) It is a big deal. There is a world of difference between saying “here’s some interesting tidbits that might warrant some further investigation in a more controlled way” and “we can draw conclusions from the data”. It’s precisely that world of difference that makes this a bad study. I would have no objections if the authors said, “here’s what we observed, now isn’t that neat?” rather than trying to make assertions they cannot support reasonably. If you’re going to make claims about studies you post, you should be held accountable to those claims.
(2) Well that’s nice to know, but I’m hardly worried about the intellectual capacity of some random, faceless guy I will most likely never meet. But I wasn’t trying to make this a dick measuring contest by insulting your critical thinking skills, in case you didn’t notice the “if” qualifier. What I said amounted more to: “anyone who genuinely believes that firm conclusions can be drawn from this study is most likely lacking in some critical thinking skills”. Would you disagree with this statement?
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]Paul33 wrote:
so basically no conclusions can be drawn from that besides orals potentially being dangerous, which has been known for decades.
[/quote]
Wrong. Several interesting conclusions could be drawn, but I can’t be arsed to force-feed them to you if can’t figure them out by yourself.
[/quote]
Are you fucking kidding me? No “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, which if you read the full-text, is actually rather poorly conducted. That being said, a number of interesting observations were made in this study.
I respect your accomplishments as a lifter, but if you honestly do believe that “conclusions” can be drawn from this study, your critical thinking skills (or at least those regarding science) leave much to be desired.[/quote]
(1) Yep, I should have used interesting “tidbits” rather than “conclusions”. Big deal. I think I introduced the text as a “fun little study” - should have given away that I wasn’t given much credence to it, but I’m glad you guys pointed out the obvious.
(2) Don’t you worry about my reasoning skills - they are perfectly fine. In fact, I would argue they are way better than my lifts.[/quote]
(1) It is a big deal. There is a world of difference between saying “here’s some interesting tidbits that might warrant some further investigation in a more controlled way” and “we can draw conclusions from the data”. It’s precisely that world of difference that makes this a bad study. I would have no objections if the authors said, “here’s what we observed, now isn’t that neat?” rather than trying to make assertions they cannot support reasonably. If you’re going to make claims about studies you post, you should be held accountable to those claims.
(2) Well that’s nice to know, but I’m hardly worried about the intellectual capacity of some random, faceless guy I will most likely never meet. But I wasn’t trying to make this a dick measuring contest by insulting your critical thinking skills, in case you didn’t notice the “if” qualifier. What I said amounted more to: “anyone who genuinely believes that firm conclusions can be drawn from this study is most likely lacking in some critical thinking skills”. Would you disagree with this statement?[/quote]
Ugh, I never said that I agreed with the authors’ conclusions nor that it presents strong evidence for a particular proposition. All I said is that one COULD come to some interesting conclusions taking into account their data. Whether you assign much weight to such inference is a relevant but different question. You got hung up on the word “conclusion”, since you want to reserve that word only to situations where the evidence (the study in this case) is beyond a certain threshold of soundness. While you can essentially define your words however you like, I think keeping the more general definition of “conclusion” makes sense. Get it?
ps: How big is your dick anyway?
I’m not defining words however I please, science is. What is the difference between “conclusive” and “inconclusive” results? A significance threshold. I hardly think it is unreasonable to assume the use of scientific language when discussing science.
Sure, we COULD draw conclusions (i.e. make inferences) based on the data, but if there’s no reasonable basis to do so, why the fuck SHOULD we? You’re arguing semantics and it’s quite clear to me that you’re just grasping at straws.
I really don’t see what’s so unclear about my stance: if you want to discuss science, I will treat you and judge you as I would a scientist. I believe that’s a good thing. IMO, treating you otherwise is a display of condescension, a trait some posters on this site seem to display in excess.
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
I’m not defining words however I please, science is. What is the difference between “conclusive” and “inconclusive” results? A significance threshold. I hardly think it is unreasonable to assume the use of scientific language when discussing science.
Sure, we COULD draw conclusions (i.e. make inferences) based on the data, but if there’s no reasonable basis to do so, why the fuck SHOULD we? You’re arguing semantics and it’s quite clear to me that you’re just grasping at straws.
I really don’t see what’s so unclear about my stance: if you want to discuss science, I will treat you and judge you as I would a scientist. I believe that’s a good thing. IMO, treating you otherwise is a display of condescension, a trait some posters on this site seem to display in excess.[/quote]
people will try to use any data, no matter how worthless, to reinforce their own opinions
[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
I really don’t see what’s so unclear about my stance.[/quote]
Nothing. I understood and agreed with it even before you and some others pointed it out. You threw a tantrum because you assumed that I thought the study was of good quality because I used the word “conclusion”. While I can see that the use of the word can be misleading here (albeit not wrong conceptually), I repeatedly made clear that I never meant what you implied. Whether you believe me or not doesn’t concern me.
I didn’t read this thread but anyone who trains for cosmetic purposes can definitely achieve an extremely impressive physique without any anabolic use, you just need to put the time in. My avatar is the result of about 5 years of purposeful natural training.
check out this guys 1 year transformation on steroids…
^That’s pretty damn impressive.
While part of it is a factor of leanness, his face went from looking like he was in his early 20s to looking like he was in his early 30s in the matter of a year.
There are a few current/former posters on this site where I’ve seen something similar.
Just an observation, but something I’d take into consideration.
Also consider the laundry list of steroids, peptides and ancillaries he documented in another video (might have been taken down).
[quote]LoRez wrote:
While part of it is a factor of leanness, his face went from looking like he was in his early 20s to looking like he was in his early 30s in the matter of a year.
There are a few current/former posters on this site where I’ve seen something similar.
Just an observation, but something I’d take into consideration.[/quote]
I look early 40’s at the oldest brah.