This week I found an interesting study done at Cambridge University on performance enhancing drugs. While most studies on these drugs focus on the potential positive and negative effects of these drugs, not many focus on the topic of the article Epidemiology and Infection. Rather than looking at what the drug does to the body, the researchers of the study chose to study the effects of the route of administration, self-injection. Self-injection has been widely known to cause multiple negative effects on the body when using other illegal substances, but it has rarely been done with performance enhancing drugs. The study had two categories of adverse effects injection can have: the first being redness, swelling, and tenderness, and the second being having an abscess, sore, or open wound at the injection sight. The researchers studied a group of 366 males, and found that 42% had experienced the first category of symptoms, and 6-8% had experiences the second. They also looked at the percentage of participants that had sought out medical care for these symptoms, and found that 17% sought care for the first symptom, and 76% for the second. They also looked at the most common places these individuals went for treatment, and found they most often went to emergency clinics or General Practitioners. With their results the researchers felt that we need to put resources into interventions for these individuals, which would allow access to the proper sanitary injecting materials. They also suggested additional harm reduction efforts in the form of targeted advice. Overall, I felt that this is a very important study because the adverse effects of injecting are often ignored when discussing the adverse effects of performance enhancing drugs. While we ultimately need to put efforts into helping individuals who take part in harmful use, I believe that harm reduction is essential to helping users in the meantime.
D. HOPE, J. McVEIGH, A. MARONGIU, M. EVANS-BROWN, J. SMITH, A. KIMERGÅRD, V. PARRY and F. NCUBE. (2014). Injection site infections and injuries in men who inject image- and performance-enhancing drugs: prevalence, risks factors, and healthcare seeking . Epidemiology and Infection, available on CJO2014. doi:10.1017/S0950268814000727.
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