Your Steroid Resource

A former Metropolitan Police officer was jailed today after admitting dealing steroids and perverting the course of justice.

Justin Weaver, 28, of Swansea, South Wales, was uncovered as a long-time anabolic steroid addict as he was jailed for 16 months.

He used an ex-girlfriend and South Wales Police civilian worker to check whether his activities were being investigated, the court heard.

Weaver was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court today with five others who all played larger or smaller parts in the complex drug case.

He was 19 when he started taking the illegal drugs, used widely by body-builders, while working at a gym, the court was told.

From then on he became psychologically dependant on the drugs which ultimately led to his dramatic fall from grace.

He had used his contacts in the city to supply a handful of body-building friends with the drugs.

Judge Peter Heywood told him his actions amounted to a ”gross breach of trust” as he jailed him today.

”Your culpability is the most extreme because you were a serving police officer with the Metropolitan Police,” he said.

”You have let down yourself, your family, your colleagues and the police force.”

With him today was Weaver’s ex-girlfriend Amanda Griffin, 29, of Swansea, who used her position as a civilian police worker to help him.

As a call handler in the Force’s Occurrence Bureau she was able to access police intelligence and carried out checks on his name.

Jim Davis, prosecuting, told the court she had also helped him avoid prosecution after he was caught speeding driving her car

Weaver and Griffin had both previously admitted conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Both also admitted conspiracy to commit wilful misconduct in public office.

Weaver alone also admitted two counts of conspiracy to supply controlled drugs.

Griffin was given a 24-week jail term suspended for 12 months and ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work.

Body-builder and ambulance worker Alan Dutton, 37, of Swansea, was also jailed today for supplying Weaver with steroids. He admitted two counts of supplying controlled drugs, steroids and diazepam, and was jailed for 10 months.

John Griffiths, 41, was given a 26-week prison term, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to do 120 hours unpaid work. He admitted allowing his premises, TBS Nutrition in Oxford Street, Swansea, to be used for the supply of controlled drugs.

Andrew Surman, 32, of Swansea, admitted a single charge of supplying a controlled drug. He was given a 32-week jail term, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to do 18 months of unpaid work.

Leighton Hackles, 32, admitted conspiracy to supply controlled drugs. He was jailed for 40 weeks, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work.

THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) — The fattening of America has touched even professional baseball players: A new study contends they’ve been getting heavier and bulkier over the past century, resulting in a higher risk of weight-related disease and death.
Eric L. Ding, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, examined the body-mass index of more than 15,000 major league players, stretching back to 1876. He found that the BMI for all players has steadily increased over the years — with the largest increase seen in home run hitters.

“One reason we chose to study professional players is that there is such an amazing chronology and body of statistics of each athlete who ever played,” said Ding, who was to present his findings Wednesday at the American Heart Association’s Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention annual conference, in San Francisco.

Ding compiled data on players from all six recognized major leagues that existed from 1876 to 2007. Using BMI as a measure of overweight, he found that 32 percent of professional players were overweight before 1880; 46.5 percent from 1940-50; and 55.5 percent from 2000 to 2006.

The trend was especially noticeable among home-run hitters. They were more than twice as likely to be overweight as other position players. The study didn’t examine why hitters in particular, and pro ball players in general, were getting heavier. But, Ding said, the bigger BMIs probably reflect the sport’s growing emphasis on power and strength.

In recent years, there has been controversy over the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances among athletes, including baseball players. Steroids are known to cause weight gain, which would increase a user’s BMI. Ding’s study did not address steroid use.

Regardless of the cause of bigger bodies, Ding correlated the increased BMIs with an increased risk of death. Studies have shown that being overweight raises the risk of a number of diseases and conditions, including stroke, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and certain cancers.

Dr. Struan Coleman, team physician for the New York Mets and a sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, agreed that ballplayers’ BMIs are growing, but he disagreed that there’s a related health risk.

“Baseball players are getting heavier because they are getting stronger,” Coleman said. “Baseball players are a very unique group” and should not be compared to the general population, where body fat is a greater problem.

When Mets players arrive for spring training, team trainers carefully monitor their weight and body fat percentage. The result is that very few players are fat, Coleman said, adding that the BMIs of players today are primarily due to muscle.

Modern athletes do more weight training and have better diets than players of 40 or 50 years ago. They also take more dietary supplements, he said.

“Size alone may not be the problem,” said Coleman, suggesting that genetic predisposition and the use of steroids among some players several years ago may have heightened the mortality risk.

By Peter West
HealthDay Reporter

OWENSBORO, KY (WFIE) -  A one-time Kentucky body-building champion and two others have pleaded guilty on federal steroid charges.

Kevin Seth Revelette, 38, of Greenville, Kentucky, and 43 year-old Jimmie Lynn Garrison pled guilty to distributing anabolic steroids, and Garrison and Mary Kay Hamilton, 32, of Owensboro, Kentucky, also pled guilty to destroying evidence to obstruct an investigation.

Revelette, the 2006 Mr. Kentucky body building champion, and Garrison admitted that between October 2006 and April 2008, they conspired with Brandon Millay, also of Owensboro, to distribute anabolic steroids, which are Schedule III controlled substances.  Hamilton and Garrison admitted that on May 6, 2008, they destroyed evidence to obstruct a federal investigation.  Millay previously pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing.  Co-defendant Keith Barrett Evans is scheduled for trial on April 14.

The maximum potential penalties for Revelette are five years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and supervised release for a period of at least two years.  The maximum potential penalties for Garrison are 25 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and supervised release for a period of not less than two years.  The maximum potential penalties for Hamilton are 20 years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and not more than three years of supervised release.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David Weiser, and it was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Office of Criminal Investigations of the United States Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Kentucky State Police, and the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office.

Revelette, Garrison and Hamilton are scheduled to be sentenced July 6 in Owensboro.

Luggage, or in a more accurate term baggage, is something that the New York Yankees have become used to carrying in recent year. With Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and most recently, Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees have a rich, recent history of being embroiled in steroid scandals. Fresh off of another World Series victory and coming out of a winter without controversy, 2010 was supposed to be the year that was all put behind them.

Unfortunately, that first piece of luggage always finds its way back around the carousel, and it eventually finds its owner. Unfortunately, the baggage again belongs to Alex Rodriguez.

On Monday, Rodriguez acknowledged that he is cooperating with authorities investigating a Canadian doctor believed to have conspired to smuggle human growth hormone and the performance enhancing drug Actovegin into Canada and the United States. Rodriguez’s connections to the doctor, Anthony Galea, are cloudy at best. He is known to have seen a chiropractor, who himself has connections to Galea, as part of his rehabilitation after hip surgery in 2009, but when questioned by the Yankees initially, told the team that he had never been seen by Galea directly.

However, according to the New York Times investigators’ records indicate that Galea had treated Rodriguez in the past. Coupled with his denial to answer questions about his dealings with Galea when probed by the media on Monday, Rodriguez again find himself in a sticky situation, both in regards to steroids and his relationship with the Yankees.

Now, in fairness, this investigation has also involved the questioning of Mets shortstop Jose Reyes, who saw Galea last season for treatment of calf injury using Galea’s blood spinning
 techniques, which the doctor used to help facilitate healing. Another client of Galea’s, Tiger Woods, will also likely be questioned about his connection to the doctor. Woods himself is no stranger to controversy, as he currently tries to rebuild his life after a torrent of infidelity claims have derailed his career and marriage in recent months.

Of course, the concern of the Yankees and, more importantly, Major League Baseball, has to be the correlation between these new events and the now infamous BALCO investigation, which really blew the cover off of the steroid problem in baseball.

Ideally, both sides want to believe that Rodriguez, Reyes, and any other athlete that may be tied to Galea are telling the truth and that their dealings with him were purely legal medical practices.

Whether or not the court of public opinion casts their verdict first is another story. Until then, someone is going to be saddled with baggage, and Rodriguez is the last person left standing near the carousel, so for now, he needs to claim the bag.

SAN DIEGO – Athletes who use anabolic steroids may seriously damage their kidneys, according to new findings presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s Renal Week conference.

“Athletes who use anabolic steroids and the doctors caring for them need to be aware of the potentially serious risks to the kidney,” said lead investigator Leal Herlitz, MD, Assistant Professor of Pathology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

Reports of professional athletes who abuse anabolic steroids are increasingly common.  Most people know that using steroids is not good for their health, but until now their effects on the kidneys have not been known. 

Dr. Herlitz and her colleagues recently conducted the first study describing injury to the kidneys following long-term abuse of anabolic steroids. They studied a group of 10 bodybuilders (six Caucasians and four Hispanics) who used steroids for many years and experienced proteinuria and severe reductions in kidney function. 

The men were seen between 1999 and 2009 and had highly muscular physiques. All were long-term anabolic androgenic steroid abusers, had proteinuria of 1g/day or greater, and a renal biopsy diagnosis of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). The average BMI was 34.7 kg/m2 (range: 27-43).  The men presented with proteinuria (mean 10.1 g/day, range 1.3- 26.3 g/day) and renal insufficiency (mean serum creatinine 3.0 mg/dL, range: 1.3- 7.8 mg/dL).  Five men presented with full nephritic syndrome.

It is well known that FSGS typically occurs when the kidneys are overworked. The kidney damage observed in this group of bodybuilders had similarities to that seen in morbidly obese patients, but appeared to be even more severe.  Renal biopsy revealed FSGS in nine of the patients; four of the nine patients also had glomerulomegaly. One patient had glomerulomegaly alone. Three biopsies showed collapsing lesions of FSGS and four had perihilar lesions. Seven of the 10 men had tubular atrophy of 40% or greater and interstitial fibrosis.

“It is important to recognize that all the people in this series were long-term abusers, ranging from eight to 20 years of use,” explained Dr. Herlitz, who presented study findings at the 2009 Renal Week conference here. “So, it is unlikely that someone who uses for a few months is going to be significantly harmed. I really have no basis for estimating the prevalence of this problem and I’m hoping that this study will bring attention to the issue so that people will be aware of the entity and we can start to better understand who is affected and why.”

Follow-up data were available for eight of the 10 patients. The mean follow-up was 2.2 years. One patient progressed rapidly to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and seven patients received renin-angiotensin system (RAS) blockade. One of these seven also received corticosteroid therapy. All seven patients who received RAS blockade discontinued anabolic androgenic steroids and reduced their exercise regimens. They also lost weight and had a stabilization or improvement in serum creatinine and a decrease in proteinuria.

Although the bodybuilders who discontinued steroid use experienced improvement in their kidney abnormalities, one individual with advanced kidney disease progressed to ESRD and required dialysis. One subject started taking steroids again and suffered a relapse, developing progressive proteinuria and renal insufficiency.

Compared with historical controls who had obesity-related glomerulopathy, FSGS in these bodybuilders was a more severe form of the disease with higher creatinine and proteinuria levels at presentation. These patients also tended to have more glomerular and tubulointerstitial scarring.

The researchers proposed that extreme increases in muscle mass require the kidneys to increase their filtration rate, placing harmful levels of stress on the kidneys. “As in obese patients, the increased strain on the kidney from the elevated body mass leads to hyperfiltration injury,” Dr. Herlitz explained.

It is also likely that steroids have direct toxic effects on the kidneys. “Numerous animal models have shown adverse effects of androgens on the kidneys and we believe that the anabolic steroids themselves may be directly nephrotoxic,” she said.