Steroids, or anabolic steroids is synthetic forms of the male sex hormone, testosterone.

Anabolic steroids can be used to treat problems with human hormones (i.e. puberty delay), and diseases causing muscle loss (i.e. cancer and AIDS). Some athletes abuse this drugs to increase their muscular performance and improve their physical appearance, disregarding the danger of the substance.

Misuse of steroids may cause danger for both short term and long term period. In short term period, anabolic steroids typically causes mental problems such as delusions, agitation/restlessness, extreme, mood swings, paranoia, and impaired judgments. However, the most common and noticeable is severe acne and body-swelling, especially in the hands and feet. In long term period, this form of steroids have permanent effects such as kidney failure, liver damage, stroke, and heart attack.

Danger of steroids may also vary in men and women, and commonly influence the characteristics of each gender. In men, steroids may cause: breast development, painful erection, decreasing size of testicles, decreasing sperm count, even impotence and/or infertility. Women who abuse the substance will experience problems like excessive face and body hair growth, deeper voices, menstrual problems, enlarged clitoris, reduced breast size, and even masculinized female fetus.

There are also some common health problems in both gender caused by the abuse of anabolic steroids, which are usually long term and worsen as the abuse continues: oily scalp and skin, jaundice, baldness, tendon rupture, even liver cancer and heart attack.

Anabolic steroids may not cause euphoria like other drugs do, yet steroids is still addictive. Research shows that people who have used the drugs still continue taking them despite the high costs and negative impacts in their relationships and life. They even choose to turn to other drugs to ease the dangerous symptoms that they have experienced.

Due to the addictive characteristics of steroids, the withdrawal treatment for this drugs is done through a tapering program to minimize the withdrawal symptoms, for example insomnia, trouble in concentrating, apathy and depression, anxiety, decreasing sex drive, headaches, anorexia, and fatigue.